How can a consumer economy possibly be sustainable?
GDP is, by definition, basically only consumption and government spending.  That's why you see consumption reported as such a high % of the overall number.  Gross Output (GO) is a more comprehensive measure of economic activity, and on that measure household consumption is closer to 35% of the economy.  A "consumer economy" isn't one in which most economic activity is in the form of consumption of imported goods &mdash; there is plenty of production going on in such countries, as well.  More production than consumption, in fact (since many of the goods produced are used by other businesses, and often not counted in GDP figures.)