Designed for high school economics students as a public service project of the American Fletcher National Bank, the booklet examines the heavy burdens placed on our political-economic system and compares our economy to an overloaded electrical system about to "blow a fuse." In the last two decades, America has become a self-indulgent society which demands more from society than it is capable of giving. Some pressures are: (1) the American view that jobs are an entitlement; (2) the belief that Americans are entitled to real growth in personal living standards; (3) the decline in productivity; (4) the belief that Americans are entitled to government support, resulting in increased dependency on Social Security, unemployment compensation, and other benefit programs; (5) the channeling of profits into environmental and regulatory programs rather than into future investments; (6) an increasing dependence on imported oil, resulting in increasingly higher energy costs; and (7) the ever-increasing burden of keeping up with the Soviet Union in defense. Americans can ease these pressures by first slowing down the pace of nonessential and credit buying. Second, there must be a voluntary slowdown in wage and price demands. Third, Americans must reduce their demands on government and stop driving the country into continued deficit spending and finally, we must accept slower rates of economic growth at the personal and corporate level. (LH)