The cost of consumerism is more than just the money wasted on unnecessary gadgets, trinkets, and toys. Perhaps the most egregious cost to bear is the misplaced capital, research, engineering, and production that would otherwise be dedicated to more meaningful products. By consuming "junk" we are signaling to manufacturers (both domestically and abroad) to allocate their production capacity as well as research and development to items of questionable value. For every widget that is conceived, produced, and purchased for consumption, valuable resources were expended that otherwise could have been directed to more meaningful endeavors. Initially this shift in resources may seem benign until one considers the absolute cost of such waste. Literally hundreds of billions of dollars are spent annually on products that provide little to no lasting value, are destined for a landfill, and are frequently toxic.
In addition to the misapplication of production capacity there are additional costs as well. Money aside, the hours and mind power spent accomplishing something of little enduring value has to be acknowledged and accounted for. This energy if redirected and focused on some worthy (I'll let you decide what that might be) cause would pay enormous dividends to current and future generations. What if a significant number of television viewers decided to volunteer their time towards a social cause for just an hour a week? How many man hours would that tally to? At some point in history the quest improve life reached an inflection point shifting from a positive reduction in labor and time to what we have today where even the poorest (at least in the United States) will fritter away valuable time on useless gadgets, games, and television programming. At no other point in recorded history have we had the ability to waste the way we do presently. Perhaps some of it stems from ignorance or even apathy; either way the fact remains that millions of people starve to death each year while the developed world throws away cheap toys from fast food kids meals. No mentally healthy human being would allow another human to die in exchange for a (insert useless item here) yet that is precisely what we are doing. Just today I received a request from World Vision asking for as little as $27 to provide medicine for children who will likely die without it. What have you spent $27 or more on in the last week that had the potential to so profoundly impact a life?
We have the capacity to eliminate much of the suffering throughout the world by simply reallocating how we direct our resources. What's wrong with us?
-Joe
Friday, September 25, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
How to pay for health care
It appears to be fashionable these days to complain about the status and cost of health care in America. At the risk of being labeled an apologist for the insurance industry (yes I despise them too, but I'll save that for a future post) a few inconsistencies struck me as odd. Primarily, I'd like to know how it is that people are unable afford health insurance yet are able to afford some or all of the following items:
Is it really a mystery that people who eat nutritionally deficient food, stare at a television for hours each day, and get little to no physical exertion end up sick?
Clearly health care needs to be reformed, (although it's laughable to think that a bureaucratic albatross like our federal government is going to come up with a cheaper and more efficient system than we currently have) is it too Polly-Anna to believe we would collectively save more money and be healthier by simply changing our own habits first?
It' s easy to complain about the cost of insurance, but much harder (and more effective) to change our own behavior.
-Joe
- cell phones
- large screen televisions
- cable television (the big screen just isn't cool without digital cable)
- high speed internet access
- multiple vehicles
- fast food
- iPods
- computers
- cigarettes
- alcohol
- soda
- candy
- movies
- home theater systems
- vacations
- gym memberships
- video games
Is it really a mystery that people who eat nutritionally deficient food, stare at a television for hours each day, and get little to no physical exertion end up sick?
Clearly health care needs to be reformed, (although it's laughable to think that a bureaucratic albatross like our federal government is going to come up with a cheaper and more efficient system than we currently have) is it too Polly-Anna to believe we would collectively save more money and be healthier by simply changing our own habits first?
It' s easy to complain about the cost of insurance, but much harder (and more effective) to change our own behavior.
-Joe
Sunday, August 2, 2009
consistent men
In an effort to pare down my library of books and make room for new volumes I have been listing duplicates, previously read, and books I no longer want for sale on Amazon. Interestingly enough I came across this passage from a 1st edition 1947 printing of Kenneth Roberts book "Lydia Bailey." Needless to say, it is no longer on the Amazon sell list.
"I'm not over-enthusiastic about books that teach or preach, but I may as well admit in the beginning that my primary reason for writing this book was to teach as many as possible of those who come after me how much hell and ruin are inevitably brought on innocent people and innocent countries by men who make a virtue of consistency.
All the great villains and small villains whom I met so frequently in the events I'm about to set down were consistent men-unimaginative men who consistently believed in war as a means of settling disputes between nations; equally misguided men who consistently believed that war must be avoided at all hazards, no matter what the provocation: narrow men who consistently upheld the beliefs and acts of one political party and saw no good in any other; shortsighted men who consistently refused to see that the welfare of their own nation was dependent up on the welfare of every other nation: ignorant men who consistently thought that the policies of their own government should be supported and followed, whether those policies were right or wrong; dangerous men who consistently thought that all people with black skins are inferior to those with white skins; intolerant men who consistently believed that all people with white skins should be forced to accept all people with black skins as equals. And I know that any nation that cannot or will not avoid the dreadful pitfalls of consistency will be on e with the dead empires whose crumbling monuments studded our battlegrounds in Haiti and in Africa."
It's not often that I read fiction, however I'll be making an exception in this case.
-Joseph Graves
"I'm not over-enthusiastic about books that teach or preach, but I may as well admit in the beginning that my primary reason for writing this book was to teach as many as possible of those who come after me how much hell and ruin are inevitably brought on innocent people and innocent countries by men who make a virtue of consistency.
All the great villains and small villains whom I met so frequently in the events I'm about to set down were consistent men-unimaginative men who consistently believed in war as a means of settling disputes between nations; equally misguided men who consistently believed that war must be avoided at all hazards, no matter what the provocation: narrow men who consistently upheld the beliefs and acts of one political party and saw no good in any other; shortsighted men who consistently refused to see that the welfare of their own nation was dependent up on the welfare of every other nation: ignorant men who consistently thought that the policies of their own government should be supported and followed, whether those policies were right or wrong; dangerous men who consistently thought that all people with black skins are inferior to those with white skins; intolerant men who consistently believed that all people with white skins should be forced to accept all people with black skins as equals. And I know that any nation that cannot or will not avoid the dreadful pitfalls of consistency will be on e with the dead empires whose crumbling monuments studded our battlegrounds in Haiti and in Africa."
It's not often that I read fiction, however I'll be making an exception in this case.
-Joseph Graves
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