The Upside of the fiscal down-side

OK--so here I go again. There is a golden lining to this financial rain cloud. It's the opportunity that all US citizens need to reduce their footprint on the world. For years our duty as citizens is measured by our consumption--the advice to citizens reeling from the aftermath of 9/11 from the Bush Government, was to go shopping!!! Well--truth is we need to slow down that consumption. Not just our carbon footprint, but our use of all the raw materials that are collected from around the world, made into goods and products and sold to us through marketing and hype as things we absolutely need. Already we're using much more than our fair share of the earth's resources. As developing countries incomes slowly rise, they also want a share of the good life. And the good life they see on their TVs is our luxury life. In Russia, in Hong Kong, in India and China, the good life of the richest resembles the life of Paris Hilton and her useless ilk. If even a smidgen of that good life becomes part of the Middle class lifestyle in emerging economies we're in trouble and so are they. No that's not the model we need to project to the world. We used to be models of thrift. Now we barely have any savings in the Bank. The Chinese have huge reserves of cash becasue their population is still wary of the new economy and saves like mad. We spend like mad at the urging of our Government, and are perplexed when the Government tells us they won't support the basics, health insurance, prescriptions, old age pensions, public transport--the list is endless.

Our consumption rate needs to be drastically reined in permanently--not just in response to a temporary crisis. Each person should evaluate their purchases before they plonk their money down. Is the item needed or just wanted. Are we just bored with our products or do we really need to replace them. I had my house remodeled recently after 30 years of neglect. It needed it, but when I threw out my old stove, my refridgerator, my microwave, I confess I felt guilty. They still worked. Luckily some of the remodeling crew (recent immigrants from Latin America) leapt on the goods and took them home to replace their own old models.

Moving on from the individual to the State, can we please find a different model for measuring the productivity of our country than GDP? This would be a great time now to consider it. Can we instead develop an index of citizen happiness, "customer satisfaction" with the way our government supports us? Can we also throw out the pretence that "economics" is a science that can predict furture events.? Can we stop hiring economists for every important job and instead hire a social scientist (not that they're always much better) who can measure human satisfaction paired with an accountant who can calculate the cost? I am so sick of the World Bank economists, the IMF economists, the UN economists and the worst, the US Government economists. They've all persuaded us that they know and understand the future, but their history of predictions and persuasions tells a very different story. Get rid of the lot of them!!!!