Expert sounds alarm on U.S. consumer spending

Here's why experts are so concerned about the U.S. consumer.

Transcript

00:00I think we should be concerned about the American consumer.

00:03There was an article in The Wall Street Journal last week that said that

00:06roughly 50 percent of consumer spending

00:10is the highest 10 percent of income earners,

00:14people who earn over 250,000 per year and up.

00:18And that's unhealthy for our economy.

00:20It's just not good.

00:21So I'm really concerned about the fact that most spending

00:25is at the top of the pyramid for the American consumer and most normal people,

00:29middle class, lower middle class, lower class.

00:33They don't have any excess money to spend on anything right now.

00:36And I think that's a real vulnerability risk for the economy first

00:40and for our country, more importantly, second.

00:43It's not a healthy state of affairs.

00:45And I also would add to that that the first year you buy your home

00:50has gone up from an average age of 26, 27 to 34.

00:55And that's really sad.

00:57I mean, one of the great things about being in this country

00:59is the ability to own your own home and the fact people can't afford it

01:03until they're much older right now is very unhealthy.

01:06And that's due to interest rates going up dramatically

01:09and due to the price of single family homes going up dramatically

01:12since the Great Recession because we didn't build enough homes.

01:16So hopefully we'll have a much higher supply of homes

01:19coming on the market the next five to 10 years

01:21so more people can afford to own their first home.

01:24That's that's something we should all cheer for.

01:26And right now, it's really kind of a

01:29ominous, depressing thing about the economy.

01:31So we've got a lot of things to worry about right now.

01:34But the good news is we live here.

01:36This is still the best country in the world.

01:38You know, the joke that Winston Churchill made back in the day is

01:42the United States is the best house in a bad neighborhood.

01:45The world is really not in great shape right now, but we're about the best act

01:48there is. So we should all celebrate that.

01:50But there's there's many things to worry about and be cautious about right now

01:54as well.