> Shrinking consumption (ie economic deflation, a decrease in GDP) would absolutely destroy the USA. I can't really argue - the US financial industry, especial

> Shrinking consumption (ie economic deflation, a decrease in GDP) would absolutely destroy the USA. I can't really argue - the US financial industry, especially, is built on never-ending exponential growth, and some would argue the financial industry has "decoupled" from the rest of the economy. The whole 2008 tower of cards blowing over certainly would argue for that. How much value can you build on top of a loan that will never be repaid? Answer: Way, way more than you ought to. But if you've built something that can't go on forever, it's reasonable to see that it won't. Exponential growth on a finite planet can't go on forever, and even if you start playing around in space, you just kick the can a bit. The question then becomes, "Do you just let things go on and hope you can kick the can to the next guy's {political term, lifespan, etc}? Or do you try and fix the problem?" The various degrowth/steady state movements are trying to fix the problem, not just kick the can. But if you've built a house of cards that requires GDP growth to even continue existing - that house is going to come down one day.