The Economy of Crap

 So the new growth rate was a rather paltry 1.5% which when compared to home prices and personal income was a downer. As an uneducated student of economics, I looked at the explanation given by the talking heads and asked, WTF are they talking about. Let see, we are stagnating because a) people are saving b) were not running out and buying new crap. Hmmm, does this make sense. It wasn't too long ago we got into a shit because people were spending too much and not saving, relying on credit cards to fuel the insatiable consumerism created by the constant bullshit that bombards every American on any electronic device 24/7. The depth and extant of this pernicious need to consume smothers the world in junk, for if there is one constant among all the crap we buy it will all become junk. To base an economy on junk is little more than an attempt to squander resources in the pursuit of an illusion that the present is more important than the future, or to think only in terms of the immediate effects, something like a child consuming too much ice cream. If the world is ever going to get off the hamster wheel, things will have to be recalculated using measures that will fully account for all the variables going into a product. For example, when we calculate the value of a new product, we need to include the cost of disposing of the shit that it comes in, and for the matter, the cost of producing all the crap it is wrapped up in. To look at new consumer goods as the be all and end all of prosperity is to deny what the hell it cost to produce and to junk it. We are so fixed on this madness that we can't see the consequences of the practices that need to be addressed before we have the “new” product in our hand. That brings us to a point, is it better for someone to save or to spend? I would argue that it is better someone save for the building up of capital makes it possible to buy more durable goods. Of course, that position can only be proven if the people who safeguard the monies aren't a collection of thieves. Alas, we need some regulations, well no, we need to arrest and convict those who betray the public trust and make it hard for the rest of them to steal, something like the steel doors in a bank, but only tighter for scurrilous pin stripped bankers. To be frank, I don't know a lot about economics but what I know is that buying shit shouldn't be the basis or the measure of how well we are doing. If the modern grid were to fail, let's face we would all be in a shit. Our towering cities and suburban enclaves would fail on a scale that only a doomsday author could fully detail. Our foothold on the world was demonstrated at Fukijima. In one horrific storm, that modern shell of comfort was destroyed. Somehow, we need to refocus our energies and our models to reflect a positive move forward. It is absurd to base our economy on merely production and waste. Funny thing, since most of the junk we buy comes from China, perhaps we need to understand the value of permanence and to appreciate that if something lasts it isn't bad. We don't need all this crap, we need stuff that lasts. So as the summer rends its way through the dog days and the candidates continue to babble and the reporters talk of numbers that really don't mean anything to anyone but to the people who calculate them, we need to ask what the hell does it all mean. I would think that, for me, it is time to save and to hold off buying useless stuff I don't need. If that is impacting the economy then it is the economy and how it is measured that is at fault not me.