"BD,
For one thing, it's that same ostentatious consumerism you mention that fuels (no pun intended) our economy. Smaller, more conservative lifestyles means less buying and spending, which means less demand for consumer goods, which means...well, I imagine you do understand at this point where I'm going. Much of our commerce today involves goods and services that people buy simply because they CAN afford them. Decrease demand for these products in order to afford gas, and you decrease the need for jobs to produce them, revenue and taxes from selling them, etc. I'm not saying we couldn't get by without these things like the Europeans do; I'm saying the way we're currently structured, we've grown socially and economically dependent on them."
from coach chass....
I was in Japan a couple of years ago on a project that had three involved parties: Germans, Japanese, Americans. We had a technical review in Japan that I participated in and at one point one evening...the discussion shifted to a little bit of good natured tweaking of the Americans by the Germans with a little help by the Japanese. Focus of the tweaking was our outsized appetites and consumption for stuff.
I told them at the time that they should be thanking the gods of commerce.....becasue without all that consumerism run amok they would have no run to buy their stuff.
How things change.....
A critical mass has been achieved or is in the process of being achieved in places like India and China where sufficient wealth has been created where they are now the consumers of world resources and output.
Not that we will stop, obviously....but as consumers we will now have to compete for goods and that means prices will go up for everything.
I hate to sound pessimistic....I loved Ronald Reagan and there is a great interview in Newsweek with George Will and some liberal guy whose name escapes me.....and one of the great comments about Reagan was his sense of optimism helped define him and his core beliefs.
But to me the genie is out of the bottle in the countries I mentioned. Huge populations creating huge amounts of wealth. They may be buying $3000 cars and not $30000 cars, but they still need lots of steel and rubber and will still require gas. My general sense is that a lot of what we as Americans take for granted.....is going to start costing a lot more, with a result being a slow, gradual decline in the standard of living that most of us enjoy. Things will cost more and more and people will pay it for awhile and then gradually have to start making choices.
Probably not a bad thing.
