Consumption vs Production

It has been noted recently that we are a consuming society and not a producing society. Cheap Chinese labor has eliminated the profitability of doing anything for ourselves. It is now obvious that pursuing profit before any thing else will lead to economic collapse. Now that the shell game that is our economy has been exposed what do we do? The stimulus package is not going to create the structural change needed to move forward. Producing goods close to where they will be used is looking like one option. Eliminating excess and waste is another. There needs to be a complete approach that can embrace structural change and make our economy less reliant on consumption and waste. Environmentally sustainable thinking in our economic planning is the quickest way to drive the change because it has built in checks on waste and over consumption. By modeling our economy on sustainability we have a better chance than business as usual government spending.