Sick, sick, sick--and hope

The pathological economy.

Chinese Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao, recently gave a kind of "State of the Country" address to the National People's Congress.  He spoke at length about challenges to China's economy because of the ongoing global economic collapse. According to a report on the talk by Michael Wines, in the New York Times, Wen "reserved some of his strongest words for the Chinese consumer, whose legendary frugality has kept China's consumer goods and services industries from growing anywhere near the rate of the national economy. Wne said bolstering consumer demand must become 'a long-term, strategic principle and a basic point of departure for stimulating economic growth.'"

If there ever was an utterly honest statement of the utterly stupid and indeed pathological idiocy of the current global economic fantasmogram, this is it: unless people can be forced to buy products they don't want, the system will fail. So don't be frugal, Comrades! Don't save. Don't stop contributing to energy and materials waste and to environmental destruction by refraining from buying unwanted products. NO! Shop till you drop. Consume like there is no tomorrow in order to keep the system staggeringly alive for one more day (though, if you do continue to consume to your--and everyone's--maximum ability, there indeed will be no tomorrow)!

Of course, it is not just the crazy "Communists" in China. This is exactly the same logic behind the Capitalist bailouts and stimulus packages of the US government--our government steals wealth from future generations and gives it to banks so they will loan it to people brainwashed by advertising and other exhortations so they will buy, buy, buy.

The government also gives "stimulus" money to individuals and organizations so they too will buy, buy, buy (or hire, hire, hire), not so much because anyone really needs the products to be bought--much less the jobs to be filled--but simply to keep the insanely destructive system going by keeping people busy at needless jobs so they can be eligible for more credit so they can go further into debt by acquiring needless products.

Sick, sick, sick.

Surely we can do better.

Of course we can! It is no mystery. Simply transition at all deliberate speed to the alternatives offered for decades by Hazel Henderson, James Robertson, Herman Daly, Paul Hawken, Ira Rohter, and many others!

Jim Dator