Boomers Consume. Congress Sucks. Future Foggy.

November 28, 2012 — 1 Comment

We are given feedback about our economic well being based on consumer behavior and optimism. By assigning value to monetary transactions, but no value to the original raw materials contributed by earth our generation has proclaimed that sucking down resources in mass quantities equals wealth. This is similar to the real estate value of the United States being liberated when Europeans brought property rights and money  to America.  If we stick to this program, identifying citizens of our nation as the entitled robber barons who have been chosen to use all the natural resources in the world, we will be the repository for a very large landfill of plastic while our currency becomes a joke.  We will be able to lift up a middle class in China while we trash the one here that currently needs to buy all the plastic.  Those Chinese people can count, and we need to learn to do it too.

In Europe there are countries in which the company is required to lease, not sell, a product like a vacuum cleaner.  The company is responsible for the economic model of the value of the merchandise.  The company must recycle or dispose of any excess or repair parts, rather than leave this to the customer.  What the customer buys is the service of  a working vacuum cleaner.  This is the opposite of trying to sell as much junk as possible with no promise or expectation that it will work well or last.  I do not know the details, but it is a direction that makes a lot of sense.  Some value must be assigned to the raw materials pre discovery and pricing by humans.  Some responsibility for filling landfills with poorly made garbage must be shifted to those who make and import it.

Boomers invented credit card living and mindless consumption as status symbols.  Many have found themselves completely boomed out in middle age, and few have a plan or money for their own retirement.  The most popular personal spending habits mirror the government model.  Spend lavishly and skip the math.  While American families take on deep debt to support Chinese prosperity we are still able to afford to support a congress in the fancy style to which they have become accustomed.  Taxpayers will need to pay to fly them all home soon for the holiday reward vacation they will give themselves.  They probably all need to fly first class.  I wonder if we could swap them out for some Asian lawmakers who count.