I'm still of the impression that we base way too much emphasis on growth as a way of gauging our economic health. Growth is just one aspect of the overall picture. I know that the official numbers put out by the government include some of those factors but what I've read recently makes me think that a lot of the total dynamics are missing. For example, I would be willing to bet that a significant part of our business right now is based on military expenditures but, unless we plan to forever be at war, one cannot count on that as a sustainable segment. How does one quantify a factor like that when our goal as part of humanity ought to be removing that piece from our existence?

There's a natural growth in the economy that occurs along with the increase in the population of a country but there are upper limits to that as well. Eventually running out of resources or cramming too many people into limited space begins to detract from our quality of life and those two factors stop tracking together. It's better for a society to slowly evolve the model before it's forced to. To keep our quality of life we must start to minimize or reverse population growth and yet it goes completely counter to the desired economic model that Tom cites as evidence of success.

Why have we evolved to the point where a businessman that builds a company that services a segment of the population in his area is considered a failure if his bottom line doesn't increase year after year? Maybe it's because, under our current model, someone rejecting unnatural growth is fed upon by the people that place no boundaries on themselves. A person today that wants to open a small neighborhood hardware store is facing a losing battle with 2 Home Depots and a Lowes within 5 miles of his area. Even if he finds some new area out in the sticks, he knows it's just a matter of time before he'll be pushed out as the area grows unless he engages in the same game and intends to grow to a warehouse-sized operation.

Yeah, it's completely fair under the rules of free enterprise but it's short-sighted in my mind. I'm not advocating placing governmental restrictions on the huge corporations that have created this growth model. I want them to figure this out and come to the conclusions on their own that they have an ethical obligation to mankind to evolve with the dynamics. We wouldn't have the mortgage mess we have today if that industry was self-regulating and took on its own abusers. We wouldn't have the Enrons if their board members had questioned their huge dividend checks against what was probably pretty obvious if one looked into their actual business production.

The change I'm calling for requires a fundamental alteration into how we're raised and educated and the ethics we're exposed to. That doesn't take religion or mandated alterations to our society. It simply takes a leaders that know how to inspire Americans again, ones that can sell a new vision. For too many years now we've lost those special people or just stopped listening to them because they've been marginalized by fitting them into these stupid molds of conformity and media niches. I yearn for the days when an eloquent President could hold the country's attention in a "fireside chat" and talk about what's right and wrong with American culture. Maybe that's a pipe dream in our overdone society where we never sit still anymore but it certainly is a worthy goal.

Art