In Search of Big Spenders; American consumers spend nearly $9 trillion a year, or 20 percent more than Europeans. But the binge is now coming to an end.

Byline: Stephen Roach (Roach is the chief economist at Morgan Stanley.)

The world has never seen such big spenders. In the United States, private consumption accounts for 70 percent of the economy, far more than in Japan (57 percent), Europe (54 percent) or China (38 percent). U.S. consumers now spend nearly $9 trillion a year, 20 percent more than Europeans, three times more than the Japanese and nine

times more than the Chinese. But the American binge is coming to an end.

As the U.S. housing bubble bursts, the American consumer is likely to stumble. Without the ...

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