The basic goal of capitalism is growth and more growth. An economy gain growth by spending money so yes, it is basically a bad idea to stop spending money when there is a financial crisis.
Produce more per capita, consume more per capita.
More so, produce more efficiently. A big boost to production efficiency? Being able to produce the same or more with less employees.
But who's going to buy that production? Those employees can't soak it up - They lost their good job and now have less money to spend.
Bottom line: Production and production efficiency has increased to the point that there is no way consumption can keep up. The non-wealthy would need to go into debt (even more) by buying stuff they probably didn't need anyway, and/or the wealthy would need to buy even more stuff they didn't need anyway. And the whole thing uses ever more natural resources to produce stuff that really didn't need producing.
Modern capitalism has succeed in making the well-off even richer and the not well-off even poorer.
The solution as I see it - Socialism. Tax the wealthy and spend the money to pay for maintaining the public infrastructure. But you need to do it in a way that doesn't require big business, to get the money to the people that really need it. Otherwise largely you're just recycling the money back to the wealthy.
Or something like that.
Moose
Professor, geology, Whatsamatta U
Evolution - Changes in the environment, caused by the interactions of the components of the environment.
"Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer." - Bruce Graham
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." - John Kenneth Galbraith
"Yesterday on Fox News, commentator Glenn Beck said that he believes President Obama is a racist. To be fair, every time you watch Glenn Beck, it does get a little easier to hate white people." - Conan O'Brien
"I know a little about a lot of things, and a lot about a few things, but I'm highly ignorant about everything." - Moose