The automakers want Congress to loan them taxpayer money so that they can use it to get consumers buying cars again. Congress has already loaned money to banks and mortgage lenders, so that they can “relieve the credit crunch” and get consumers borrowing money again. Am I missing something here?
Consumers borrowing money for house after house and car after car is what caused the current financial meltdown. What Congress, companies, lenders and consumers need to support is less consumerism, not more. Further, in my not so humble opinion, society needs to re-shift its focus in a big way away from consumerism towards a more sustainable model of living.
I grew up in the fifties and sixties when things took up a lot less space in everyone’s lives. We had one TV, one car and many people lived in the same house all through their childhood. Belongings and furnishings weren’t discarded for new ones like they are now.
I blame it on the invention and adoption of plastic, this rampant consumerism. Plastic things were cheap. It was actually cheaper to throw them away than fix them, if they could even BE fixed.
Somehow, this attitude expanded to include non-plastic items until we were throwing away almost everything as soon as the “new” wore off, as my father used to say. Now, we realize that plastic with all its toxins and dependence on oil isn’t the wonder that we thought it was way back then.
Isn’t it about time that we admit that neither is consumerism the wonderful thing we thought it was? Especially in light of the unavoidable facts of global warming and what consumerism is doing to our planet, it’s time to call it a day for recreational shopping.
Instead, I feel strongly that we should turn our minds and energy toward creating a world that appreciates the environment and engenders a culture of nurturing people, instead of creating things that we don’t really need and can’t sustain.
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