It is important to note that the economic crisis we are in right now is not the result of technical or material conditions. It is an economic problem, a problem regarding the coordination of individuals’ plans and the available resources.
Sustainability requires a balance of conservation with use. Governments everywhere subsidize consumption and tax saving and conservation.
Governments subsidies the production of roads, cars, the extraction of oil, deforestation, you name it. Most harmful is their use of artificial credit expansion from the federal reserve to subsidize widespread short-termism and present-focused consumption over savings and long term stewardship.
What has caused the crisis? Too much consumption, too much borrowing, too much lending at high risk, not enough thought and care, too much unsustainable growth leading to a widespread miscoordination of plans with the facts of reality. What is the proposed solution? More of the same: to keep the economic engine going by encouraging more present consumption, over borrowing, protecting bankers from risky lending, and a continuation of directions of unsustainable growth with more easy credit.
We cannot continue this pattern indefinitely.
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