pafret Loc: Northeast

“Un-Merry Christmas: The Perverse Incentives to Over-Consume and Over-Spend”

“Un-Merry Christmas:
The Perverse Incentives to Over-Consume and Over-Spend”
by Charles Hugh Smith

"Isn't it obvious that if we set out to design the most perverse, toxic and doomed system possible, we'd end up with the Keynesian Cargo Cult's insane permanent growth/Landfill Economy?

Few topics are off-limits nowadays: the personal and private are now splashed everywhere for all to see. One topic is still taboo: the holiday's perverse incentives to over-consume and over-spend, lest our economy implode. This topic is taboo because it strikes at the very heart of our socio-economic system, which is fundamentally based on permanent growth, the faster the better, as if unlimited expansion on a finite planet is not just possible, but desirable.

In the current Mode of Production, the solution to every social and economic ill is to "grow our way out of it."
•The solution to unemployment: jump-start growth by expanding consumption, spending and borrowing.
•The solution to stagnant wages: jump-start growth.
•The solution to declining profits: jump-start growth.
•The solution to government deficit spending: jump-start growth.

And so on.

So what happens when most people have not just the basics of life, but a surplus of stuff? Where is the growth going to come from if people already have everything? The answer is three-fold:
1. Replace a perfectly good product with a new product and dump the old one in the landfill.
2. Buy duplicates and put the surplus products in the closet or storage facility.
3. Buy gimmicks (Pet Rocks, etc.) that are tossed in the dump shortly after the holiday gift-giving season ends.

But does this Landfill Economy make sense? The cheap oil is about gone, and so does it make any rational sense to burn the last of the cheap f****l f**ls on assembling stuff nobody needs in China, shipping it thousands of miles to retailers or Amazon warehouses, adding it to the immense piles of stuff most households already own, and then shipping the old but still functional products to the landfill, just to keep the economy humming?

This is of course insane. Decisions aren't being made as if scarcity matters; the goals and incentives are set to encourage perverse and destructive overconsumption and overspending: not only are we squandering resources in the sacrifice to the false gods of "growth," we're indebting households to do so, stripping income that could have been saved and invested in productive uses.

In the lunatic asylum of the current economic model, media anchors sport grins of delirious joy when reporting increases in holiday spending, as if a bump higher from $680 billion to $700 billion is a gargantuan win for the flailing economy.

Wasting resources, capital and income on stuff nobody really needs is a monumental disaster on multiple fronts. Rather than establish incentives to conserve and invest wisely, our system glorifies waste and the destruction of income and capital, as if burning time, capital, resources and wealth on stuff nobody needs is strengthening the economy.

Isn't it obvious that this system is a one-way path to collapse? Isn't it obvious that burning resources and capital to haul stuff to the landfill at an ever-increasing rate is madness, folly, recklessness and stupidity combined? Isn't it obvious that if we set out to design the most perverse, toxic and doomed system possible, we'd end up with the Keynesian Cargo Cult's insane permanent growth/Landfill Economy?

It doesn't have to be this way. I've sketched out a sustainable, human-scale Mode of Production/way of living in my two books, "Money and Work Unchained" and "A Radically Beneficial World."

A new arrangement is inevitable. Our choice boils down to changing our understanding and Mode of Production now, before the whole perverse structure falls apart, or waiting for scarcities and self-serving systems to collapse the current arrangement, leaving the ill-prepared and shell-shocked populace to sift through the wreckage.

Common sense suggests the first option is the wiser choice, but common sense is scarce in a world trapped in a bizarre Keynesian madness.”
- http://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIUCH79y370

"Insanity..."

bggamers Loc: georgia

I really h**e to snow on your parade but 90% of the people are just trying to get by and pay their bills

Kevyn

And the other 10% just got a fat handout from the Republicans!

bggamers Loc: georgia

better then the other way around

pafret Loc: Northeast

That number is just a teensy bit exaggerated. Even those of us who cant afford Rolls Royces still buy worthless junk as gifts.

pafret Loc: Northeast

Yes, and they are very happy aboput it. Warren Buffet called me this morning to say thank you for v****g for Trump and all those Republican Representatives. He said if I'm ever in Miami I'm welcome to come aboard his yacht and polish the brass anytime.

PoppaGringo Loc: Muslim City, Mexifornia, B.R.

Yes, Warren can be quite effusive in his generosity.

out of the woods Loc: to hell and gone New York State

Remember when we were kids? Christmas meant a few surprise item under the tree? We were not bombarded by advertising. Now whether it be TV or cell phone, radio, billboard, even pumping gas, we are under a continual assault. And there is no dignity, while watching the news I noted at least 5 commercials for fashionable incontinance undergarments, WHY? Yes I am guilty, unable to afford anything of lasting value, there will be quite a few worthless, silly items under my tree. Its whats expected, the big bang. Sadly no incontenance briefs, as they may soon come in handy.

pafret Loc: Northeast

Yes the blatant 'in your face' discussions of intimate body functions has grown with the debasing of public morality. First it was the performers such as George Carlin and Lenny Bruce mounting assaults and then it spread everywhere until now we celebrate notorious harlots and tolerate any filth entering our homes because its 'business'. The use of double entendre instead of being salacious and somewhat depraved is what now passes for wit.

Yes, I remember the days when the presents under the tree were mostly the clothing, which you would have gotten because you had worn out or outgrown the stuff you were wearing. Usually one, or if you had much older siblings, two toys were under that tree. And, they didn’t come from Santa Claus, nor was there any lip service paid to that fantasy. One year it was a pair of RollFast roller-skates which I skated on until the steel wheels wore out. Another it was the Daisy Red Rider.

Best gift I ever got was a thirty-six-book library of “children’s books” which included O’henry’s short stories, Jack London, and Guy de Maupassant. Children’s books indeed. There was one book in particular written by a University of Pennsylvania Professor of Archeology. It was called digging in Yucatan and described her experiences as a member of the team that discovered and excavated Chichen Itza. At the age of ten I decided I wanted to be an Archeologist.

out of the woods Loc: to hell and gone New York State

Funny, as a child I too wanted to be an archeologist, my stepfather was a teacher and brought us countless books, but my favorites were the National Geographics. When others kids were doing book reports on fire trucks, I was doing reports on cuneiform, And Mesopotamia
I alphabetized my books and built them a shelf, sadly my carpentry sk**ls were not up to speed, and the whole affair came down on my head. I believe I uttered my first profanity in frustration, I was maybe 8. Books filled many a solitary rural afternoon, today great panic occurs when people are not connected by some device. I have a tablet, stays on my kitchen table, no cell phone. I only connect, when I take a break for a cup of coffee.

oynk

Hi. Couple of things. Maybe don't refer to "common sense" as any kind of authority or knowledgeable source.
The common is the problem.

I do have a collection of old Rolls Royces. Let me tell you, the quality is neat.....rarity too.
But I noticed a subtle hostility when driving them on occasion. Not a lot but occasionally.
And I understand it.
I grew up poor and was led to believe that in order to experience the epitome of human achievement, a person should strive to attain the best.
Kind of a Self Actualization thing, if you will.
There is something to it. However, once you achieve it you either
1). See that its not all that, or,
2). If you get the feeling from one, repeat it.
I imbibed in both. One leads to the other.
And then when you discover that some people don't celebrate success in the same way, even resent it.....well it probably wasn't worth it.
So I keep the stuff stored and still enjoy bussing around in an old Cloud by myself late at night......but probably wouldn't do it again.

Merry Christmas

oynk

Hi. Here is the theory:

A person gets more money back. They either spend it or invest it.
If they spend it, some company is getting a request for wh**ever they want to buy, to build it.
The company needs to expand to build it. They go to the bank, take out a loan, expand to meet the requested demand, hire more people, who now can start saving and buying....etc.,etc.

Where this model falls apart is that people, when they get more money, spend it.
This is driven by advertising which convinces them that they need stuff to create an image.
The problem is that people buy it.

And the biggest problem is that buying images obviates the need to really create a person.....you are what you drive than who've you made yourself into.

And in order for that company to build the requested item they need money.

And that comes from banks and from people who refrain from spending and who save or invest.....funds to draw from. Whether billions or $100.00 savings account.

The key is to teach people to stop buying identities.

But since, with liberal credit. that's easier said than done, at least jobs can be created to give those homeless you mentioned can start to achieve a life.....however they choose to define it.

Start, maybe, with teaching people that outside their houses, debt is s***ery and maybe there is hope.

Merry Christmas

pafret Loc: Northeast

Since you can obviously afford the Rolls, these comments weren't addressed to you. There is nothing wrong with enjoying the fruits of your labors and if that incites hostility, so be it. Carry a large concealed weapon.
These remarks are addressed to the fools who go into debt to buy the latest gimrack fad item as a gift.

Attaining the best as a goal may or may not satisfy. I remember seeing a man who owned a converted mine-sweeper as his yacht. He was William J. Levitt , the builder of Levittown Pa and he was known as the Henry Ford of housing. The television show he appeared on was touring Monaco's harbor looking at all of the yachts and of course the Mine-sweeper dwarfed all of them. Levitt was standing hunched and leaning on the rail of the boat and I have never seen a more sour expression. The narrator called out to him "Whose yacht is this?" and Levitt gave him a surly "Mine."

out of the woods Loc: to hell and gone New York State

Well, heck I drive a used 2003 Geo Tracker, but it's free and clear, my dogs can travel with me without worry, if it dies, I've lost nothing. value my children and my business, which will never make me wealthy, but my days are my own. I love to see beautiful cars, but dont lean that way myself. Good for you and Merry Christmas to you as well.