Spending

It is a sad state of affairs when the health of our nation's economy hinges on the consumerism of our over-leveraged middle class. Americans already carry more personal debt than their peers in any other developed nation. Our Federal Reserve wizards have enabled more borrowing by lowering interest rates for two years guaranteed. As I recall, borrowing on easy terms beyond means to repay is what has collapsed our economy. Perhaps Bernanke and fellows believe in homeopathy.

I state proudly that I am not an economist. Who helped to create this mess in the first place? I am simply a person who tries to live within his means despite many past challenges to do so. As I watch inebriated gangs, wearing new Red Sox T shirts, rumbling off to Fenway Park on the subway, I wonder how many of them charged their $100 tickets and their beers to credit card accounts that are carrying  whopping balances. How many of them are unemployed and collecting benefits from the government which it is fashionable to despise?

The entitlement of the undereducated looters in England was all to familiar too me. I see this entitlement daily on the faces of young people here in my city.  I do not see humility. I do not see moderation. I see wanting for more. This is the driving force of capitalism in a materialistic society. Wanting for more. When wanting for more merges with conformity, the avid capitalist is ecstatic. He cares nothing for the social consequences.

The most wasteful spending in a materialistic society is the spending of precious time to accumulate more. People work three jobs to satiate the grasping of their children, who are driven by their Facebook comrades. Lives are wasted at unsatisfactory jobs to enable a new generation's addiction to stuff. And, when those addicts cannot have their stuff, they melt down or become raging looters. Is this a way to a better future? 

I shut off my radio when I hear NPR air another story about the economy, told entirely from the perspective of materialistic capitalism. I listen with dark amusement when I hear the rantings of Republican presidential candidates in Iowa. They mix God and money shamelessly, while knocking human rights legislation and universal health care. They will be spending hundreds of millions in the name of God and selfish capitalism. They are articulating the madness of materialism, woven into a culture of narcissism.