We have inequality, so that there are many who don't have enough, but this is a distribution issue not a lack of wealth. The panic in these countries is that enough demand can't be created to absorb all the output from factories which can make more than is needed.
The Consumer Electronics Show starts today in Las Vegas and the discussion is all about what gimmick can be found to revive the electronics industry. Obviously people have been getting along without it, whatever it is.
If we could achieve a balanced society then we wouldn't need to generate all that "growth" and the resources saved could be used to improve the lives of the bottom billion.
As long as there is no model other than capitalism there will be no solutions which don't involve increased resource consumption and cycles of boom and bust.
We should aspire to continual improvements in quality, not quantity. Policies not Politics ---- Daily Landscape
But I think it will actually be easier to redefine growth than to give it up. If quality translates into "bigger price", then we can have growth without having more. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Notice the framing of the debates: tax adjustments vs interest rate adjustments vs more direct federal spending. These are all tools, not goals. We don't ask a plumber to design our house, we give him the plans and then he decides which size wrench is needed for a specific activity.
So what we need are sociologists and moral philosophers setting goals and then turning to the economists for suggestions on how to implement them.
The idea of "stimulating" the economy is unfocused, it is as if as long as it is bigger it doesn't matter how the restoration goes. This is completely backwards and will only end up with the haves ending up with even more.
There is a good chance that China will suffer from some wholesale civil unrest because of the downturn, I would not be surprised to see this show up in developed countries as well.
Perhaps the riots in France last year were just a foretaste of what is to come.
Goals first, then implementation plans. Policies not Politics ---- Daily Landscape
