At the other end are consumers. The purpose of buying a lot of high-tech equipment is to be more efficient in making things and providing services that, ultimately, consumers will buy. This is the heart of the current dilemma. The dirtiest little secret about the Roaring '90s is that average working families gained almost no income. Rich people don't spend nearly as much of their income as middle-income people do.
Rich people tend to save more of their earnings.
Average working people don't have that option. So it stands to reason that as most of the income gains of the 1990s went to the top, typical American consumers eventually hit the wall. Yet American businesses continued to invest in capital equipment as if consumers would remain on a consumption binge. As consumer debt mounted in the late 1990s, consumers couldn't possibly keep up. They're still buying, to be sure.