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• Monday, December 1, 2008 07:54 PM

  Pdxjoe: which part of "consumer" don't you understand?

  We need an economy that doesn't exist for its own sake, which is what the consumer-based mentality is about---not satisfying human need or want, to say nothing of the wider world, but boosting the economy. An economy that HAS to grow in order to exist at all is fundamentally unsustainable, no matter how many feel-good green technologies you got running it.

  pdxjoe: Thank you for this. I know I've long since lost this argument, but the economy doesn't keep on chugging away because I buy ONE flat-screen TV. The economy depends on me to buy that TV once, throw it out, and buy new TVs every two or three years, at six or seven thousand a pop. That flat-screen TV is going to be obsolete in about five years, and by the way, we're all going to have to throw out our carefully cultivated collection of classic movies on DVD because we guessed wrong and bought "Hi-Def" instead of "Blu-Ray" which is on an obsolete format, much as our vinyl records are sitting around collecting dust now that we've gone and paid for them. That's assuming we have any money left over after we've tossed out our computers two years after we acquired them, with all that software, because the operating system is EOL and no longer being supported and the new operating system doesn't work with any of the software we bought last month.

  I've long since lost this argument. I know the economy does better when I buy teflon than when I buy a cast-iron skillet, no matter how superior the cast iron is, because the teflon will have to be tossed and bought all over again in two or three years. I know I'm not supposed to buy an actual Steinway piano that will last three or four human lifetimes, because if I buy a Yamaha digital piano I'll have to toss it and buy another one in five years. I know we're supposed to replace all of our books with e-books that we read on an electronic monitor, meaning we have to buy the books in the correct format, which by the way will be rendered obsolete in a year or two.

  I am so sick of being referred to as a "consumer" in the context of purchases that have nothing to do with my consuming anything at all. Our economy should depend on the creation of real value, not on our having addicted our population to an endless treadmill of spending that exhausts every paycheck, maxes out every credit card, and finally exhausts the equity in our homes.

  —Kathleen L. Read Kathleen L.'s other letters
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