"Americans spend far too much of their time buying and consuming non-essential goods. Studies show that, on average Americans spend over a quarter of their leisure time shopping. As such, it is no secret why America is losing its competitive edge relative

According to the passage, the author argues that the Americans are losing their competitive edges because they spend too much time on shopping and consuming non-essential goods. Thus, in order to reverse this trend, the author recommends the Americans use more time on personal and communal development through pursuing education advancement and participating in voluntary works. At the first glance, the argument seems to be convincing, but further consideration reveals that it has several logical flaws, which include doubtful assumption to consider shopping as the root cause that contributes to being less competitive and failure to elaborate the causal relationship between the personal and communal development and the elevation of the Americans' advantages in the international world.

First, the author substantiates his argument based on the assumption that the shopping behavior is inherently wrong and may lead to the decline of the Americans' competitive edge. The statistics from a study claim that the Americans spend too much time on shopping, so they certainly don't know how to manage time well. However, whether shopping behavior will really cause the decline is still debatable, since consumption behavior is at the same time possible to boost the economy and provide the Americans with more economic edges in the world. Therefore, shopping is not necessarily destructive to the edges of the Americans. The author should adjust his assumption or cites more evidence to support his belief.

Second, whether pursuing personal and communal development can really result in the elevation of the Americans’ advantage in the world is not thoroughly explained and sufficiently supported in the passage. For example, the author forgets to mention how exactly the enhancement from education and volunteer works can benefit their edges in the international world. Thus, if the author wants to establish his argument more firmly, he should spend more efforts on clarifying the relation between his proposed solution and the intended outcome.

In conclusion, the argument is not convincing enough. It fails to address some critical issues to make the argument more credible. If the author can avoid the problems mentioned above, the argument will be much more strengthened.