[bobthepanda]

part of the problem is that to get yourself to export competitiveness, you have to essentially underpay workers through restrictions on capital and credit; and once you have done so, these export businesses become so central to the economy and to economic identity that it is politically tricky to reorient the economy.

Add on moralizing about how people should be making and not spending and you've got yourself a recipe for an export-oriented slowdown, since at some point the world won't be wealthy enough to keep raising your economy through only exports. We saw this in Japan, South Korea, and more recently Germany and China.