10 - chinese realization that the market for baby toys made from lead and toxic waste may already be saturated

9 - 30 years of negative balance of trade (buying everything from japan, china, and india) has driven the dollar down to near worthlessness

8 - financial markets no longer in denial - prospect of democratic presidency in 2008 now impossible to ignore

7 - bush is as good at managing the economy as he is at planning a war

6 - remember your smart alecky brother in law bragging about how his vacation home tripled in value - guys like him are part of the problem

5 - $4.50 for a latte at starbucks? that's about what people spend on an entire week's worth of school cafeteria lunches for their kids. people don't know what things are actually worth any more

4 -ordinary people in indianapolis, over the weekend, excused the execution style murders of 2 women and their infants (!!) by saying that jobs are so scarce that people have no choice but to deal drugs (yeah . . . but how are the drug users getting a paycheck? it can't all be people dealing drugs to each other . . . )

3 - the current toyota camry now weighs close to 2 tons, has a nearly 300 hp engine, a navigation system suitable for the space shuttle, and costs about $30,000. wretched excess.

2 - high home heating prices put people in perpetual fear that they can't make their gas and electric payments if global warming turns out not to be true.

1 - apparently the only thing the rest of the world hates more than america's materialistic, over-consumption lifestyle is the chance that we might have a recession and slow down our overconsumption

My impression is that Americans finally ran out of stuff they could pawn to support their consumption. Big screen, HiDef TVs took us past the 2d mortgage, 7year car-loan threshold--and there was nothing else to hock. When the Chinese and Japanese figured out that we had nothing else their future got black right in front of their eyes.

I prefer the Lemming explanation, but thanks.

A small point to remember about your point no.1: the world hates a slow down in the USA because it has been providing the cheap credit that enabled Americans to overconsume. When there is a slow down, this hits the outside world doubly hard (in all aspects of the balance of payments)!

baltimore aureole:

1 - apparently the only thing the rest of the world hates more than america's materialistic, over-consumption lifestyle is the chance that we might have a recession and slow down our overconsumption

"YAY RECESSION!"