Its my assessment that we cannot change things that we don't take responsibility for so in the interest of understanding how we can reorient our economy to avoid further crappiness I've been thinking about how our American culture lead us to this predicament.
My conclusion is that we came to believe that no one should have to moderate their choices regarding money. Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin and the Republican mainstream (as well as *ouch* current Obamites Tim Geithner and Larry Summers) all railed against the idea of government meddling in the dealings of Wall Street saying that the "system will regulate itself." The irony is that no system can regulate itself. Regulation is by nature an external force that moderates the fluxuations of a system. Its not possible for any system to always move in one direction so the wise person enjoys the ups while preparing for the downs. The anti-regulatory attitude is unwilling to risk a slowdown in growth and thus is ultimately forced into unchecked losses - no matter how far we push the notion from our minds.
American society has been unwilling to confront the flip-side of unregulated, unmoderated economic growth (especially in terms of the environment and public health) and so we've built an economy that doesn't account for the kinds of realities we're dealing with now and forcing us to remodel our economy in real time. With more and more people in the world fossil energy will be more and more expensive - both in terms of dollars and environmental cost - and our resources in general will be more greatly taxed. It is clearer and clearer that efficiency will be the key to growth.
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