Forbes put out a list today saying that The American Consumer was one of the 25 people who caused the failure of the financial system. Their main bone of contention was that the average consumer spent all of their income and did not save any money; running up mortgage debt, credit card debt, etc.

I also read and saw an interesting statistic, which stated the last time America had true economic growth where both wealth created and average employee compensation rose at approximately the same rate was in 1976, the end of the post-World War II expansion. It is interesting to note we are now in a period where we have the highest concentration of wealth in the last two centuries, is it possible that has something to do with average employee compensation having actually gone down for the last decade.

I watched my income grow over the last 10 years, but somehow it never seemed to keep pace with how much it cost to live in Southern California. Those of you who know us well, know we do not live an extravagant lifestyle and spend money pretty frugally. If we cannot keep up, I cannot imagine how anyone whose after-tax incomes have not risen in 10 years could keep up.

So maybe it is not entirely the average consumer's fault, since you actually have to have money left over each month to actually be able to save any money. Maybe it is the fault of those who have been dubbed the "best and brightest", the corporate leaders from America's "top" universities and business schools, many of whom are now begging at the Treasury window for funds from the public to save their precious corporations. Just look at the other 24 people on the Forbes list to see glaring examples of these so-called "best and brightest".

More on the "best and brightest" tomorrow...