You are, of course, largely right about what are "needs" and what are "wants." But I think it's a bit more complicated than that. If you have cancer, do you "need" an MRI? Then you have to live in a civilization that can afford to create such things. A rich civilization, with a lot of surplus wealth. You are not going to get an MRI if the whole world is living a comfortable agricultural subsistence existence. Think of all the other lifesaving advances that fall into this category.

Okay, forget medical. Do you need a car? How about central heating versus a wood stove? Hot water? A refrigerator? Do you need a computer? Many generations did just fine without them. Would your library function just as well without any? Or would something quite useful be lost?

There are one hell of a lot of things that make civilization worth living in that one could survive without, if simple survival is your goal.

How many people in America collect a salary to satisfy "needs?" Now, how many earn their living satisfying "wants?"

Is a librarian's function a "need" or a "want?" Will people "die or be crippled" without libraries?

Like many of us here, you are a luxury, Mary Anne. You live in a society rich enough so that you can earn a living working with books and children, instead of hunched over out in a field breaking your fingernails scrabbling in the dirt, hoping for a good harvest so the little graves out back don't increase in number. The world is filled to the brim with the latter kind of people, who think almost exclusively about "needs."

I am very tired of hearing about how wasteful our society is, and almost always from people who hang comfortably in its hammock.

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And another point:

Assuming "needs" and "wants" are a bit more complex than what you would die without, who gets to decide what I "need" and what is simply a "want?" You? Ralph Nader? Donald Trump? George W. Bush? Ted Kennedy? Do I take a vote among my neighbors to buy a second car? Do I need to get a "third child" license? If too many people are working at "wants" industries, do we march them out of town like Pol Pot to put them to "useful" work? You aren't suggesting any such thing, but I actually know some people who think along these lines.

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Credit is a problem. So is gambling, here in California. What is your solution? Restrict credit? Banks that try that often find they are restricting credit to the "wrong" groups, and are keelhauled for profiling.

How do you propose to enforce fiscal responsibility in a nation with an education system that would seemingly rather stick needles in its eyeballs that actually educate children about how markets, free enterprise, money, and finances really work?

I remember Junior Achievement in our schools when I was a kid. Are they still around? Do they still have classes in how checking accounts work? School savings accounts? Are local businessmen still brought into classes to tell how its done, or is the student's first glimpse of a real business while he's hauling a picket sign around on the front sidewalk? Do kids still buy "pretend" stocks like they did in my school? Does anyone griping about how the rich "save" money instead of spend it actually know what a financial institution does with money?

Policy in this country is decided by voters who have no idea how wealth is created, what money actually means, or why they live in the richest country on Earth.