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A Capitalist, Consumer Based Economy: to Build, Market and Sell Commodities We Don't Need

January 29, 2009

SURE US AMERICANS love our bullshit. And we don’t seem to mind going up to our necks in consumer debt for the love of instant gratification. That said, Your Montag has a question for the world economic leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, who have been discussing such things vis-a-vis the economic crisis. They are saying things like:

High levels of global activity have been sustained by the willingness of the American consumer to get deeper and deeper into debt in order to buy the excess production from China and Europe. …

But … the days when Uncle Sam spent money he didn’t have on things he didn’t need are over. …

[guardian.co.uk: Larry Elliott: Nations realise there’s no going back to business as usual this time]

When did selling people things they don’t need for which they would pay with money they don’t have ever seem like a sound long-term business model?

Hell, even the idea of “excess production” seems sketchy to me. At some point you’d think we might have considered a simpler more sustainable lifestyle with more emphasis on idleness (family time!) than on productivity toil.

3 Comments
  1. January 29, 2009 11:19 AM

    Unfortunately, I don’t think many of the bastards were thinking about sound long-term business models. More like raking in as much cash as we can in as short a time as possible. Plenty of out-of-work millionaires playing golf these days.

  2. January 30, 2009 7:01 AM

    exactly. and they would lose face if they said “yeah, we knew this was coming all along…”

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