This image of string cheese from a pressurized can pretty much sums of my view of the U.S. economy in light of the recent USA Today  article on media spending. Based on a report by the private equity firm Veronis Suler Stevenson, USA Today media writer David Lieberman writes that only agriculture and the federal government are growing faster and that media spending is poised to pass $1 trillion.

I went to a Commerce Department web page on the Gross Domestic Product to corroborate some of this and found that:

“Information-communications-technology producing industries comprised 3.9 of the economy and accounted for 14.2 percent of real GDP growth.”

Talk about hot air!

The purpose of the Veronis report was to detail the shifting of dollars amongst the various forms of media, which Lieberman does adroitly (here is article link again). Poynter commentator Alan Abbey offers another analysis here.

But I think those numbers are familiar and I thank Lieberman for pulling out the growth trend. What it suggests is the U.S. economy is running on fumes. Agriculture is a tiny and heavily-subsidized slice of the economy. Where is the joy in a deficit-financed expansion of government? And while media may be our industry its growth means advertising to push goods consumption, much of which will come from abroad, widening our trade deficit. It’s a cheese whiz economy. Tastes light. Not filling. And just wait till the bill comes due.