It’s a domino-effect US economy

Dear John: While it may feel like the economy is broken, what we have is multiple economies.

The repair to one economy often results in a problem somewhere else.

Mostly it seems to me that the system is a fixed-sum game. Kind of like when I want to lose weight, I exercise more, but then eat more. Overall, some improvement, but it is hard to escape one’s genes.

The real progress comes from the education and energy of the people. M.S.

Dear M.S. OK, but we also can’t forget some of the obvious things.

One, Americans need more income to live on than companies are willing to pay if they can get the same results by hiring someone in a less developed country.

And if companies suddenly start bringing jobs back to the US just to make Americans happy, they will make their shareholders sad. And that will create a different problem for corporate managements.

And if these companies move the jobs back to the US — say, from Mexico, if President Trump has his way — then the cost of goods will go up and consumers will be unhappy.

We also have to remember that Americans already own a lot of stuff. We are very, very lucky.

So there’s less urgency for us to make purchases that might be considered discretionary when we feel uncomfortable about our jobs.

Are we getting to the point where Americans will say, “I already have enough — I don’t need that TV that also massages my feet and clips my toenails”?