By Robert Singer

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September 29, 2008

Bail-out: There's a hole in the bucket

We can postpone the inevitable with the bail-out, but we can't avoid the financial reckoning that awaits us. Drastic changes in our way of life are about to become a reality, but maybe that won't be so bad. Today we have more stuff than we need, but we have less time for the things that really matter, such as family, friends and leisure time.

I put my betting money on Congress coming through and supporting the landmark bail- out of imperiled financial markets. But I can’t help wondering if things aren't a whole lot worse in Washington than we have been told. A press release from the Army Times reports that for the first time in American history, a president has mobilized regular combat troops to quell the potential domestic unrest that his administration fears might erupt over the greatest economic emergency and financial disaster since the Great Depression.

Its hard to imagine the 4,000 soldiers that make up the 1st Brigade Combat Team could do much to subdue angry American citizens who go shopping and find that local businesses will no longer take their devalued dollars. However, the threat of unrest is enough to convince Congress that it better go through with the bail-out.

For at least six decades, we Americans enjoyed the highest standard of living in the Western world based on our ability to import cheap raw materials (thanks to the CIA) and ship refrigerators, cars, airplanes and military hardware to the rest of the world. Soon the rest of the world caught on, and the refrigerators, cars, airplanes and even our socks started to be produced elsewhere. But we still had one more product to ship offshore, and beginning in 1980’s the Reagan administration embarked upon the greatest export of all: OUR DEBT. We got away with it for 28 years, but the ability of the rest of the world to finance our outsized standard of living has come to an end. And maybe the outcome won’t be as bad we fear; after all, in the 50’s our national happiness peaked just before we embarked on this mania for consumption.

As Bush’s father put it in 1992, "The American way of life is not negotiable”--a statement unthinkingly endorsed by nearly all Americans. For 30 years we have lived the motto: ”It is our God-given right to spend ourselves out of house and home” in a world where Americans have 5 percent of the world’s population but consume 30 percent of the world’s resources and create 30 percent of the world’s waste. Well, the American way of life is going to change and, unfortunately, there is nothing to negotiate.

Again, we can postpone the inevitable with the bail-out, but we can’t avoid the financial reckoning that awaits us. Drastic changes in our way of life are about to become a reality, but maybe that won’t be so bad. Today we have more stuff than we need, but we have less time for the things that really matter, such as family, friends and leisure time.

What matters most is how we as Americans work to change this old-school consumption mindset. There’s a new school of thinking on how much ”stuff” we need, and it’s based on sustainability and equity. I am willing to make one more bet: We will work together to get through this troubling period in history and make the U.S. and the world a better place to live.