The modern US economy is built on financialization, low trade barriers to buy and make goods at the lowest possible price, and relatively easy credit to sustain Americans' consumer lifestyles. It's unsustainable not because America doesn't manufacture things -- it does, a lot, productivity is extremely high -- but because profits and wealth have been consolidated steadily upwards under lax tax systems and deregulation, increasingly depriving ordinary working people of the means to live.