by spudbuddy » Mon 15 Aug 2005, 00:16:47
I can imagine that for a growth-oriented kind of person, all this stuff can be just a tad overwhelming.
I mean...almost every single thing that belongs to a growth industry, that has contributed to economy growth...has to turn around and head in the other direction.
I don't know enough about hardline economics to understand how this can happen without the world economy, let alone the domestic one - tilting.
On the other hand, if we manage to survive that debacle, why wouldn't there be all kinds of growth industries?
(namely, replacing all the energy wasteful stuff).
I can see much of the giganticism being replaced by small local stuff...
I wonder...where do all the megacorps go? What do they do? I don't imagine they'll just sneak away like mangy curs...(although I wish they would.)
Can you imagine world governments in the future chasing these guys around the planet...grabbing their money? Hired vigilantes bringing them to justice? Hoo!
I wouldn't mind seeing the life savings of oh, a dozen or so mega-billionaires slurped up to pay for upgraded railroads, re-designed transportation systems.
Then again...maybe this becomes the new growth industry, and all these fatcats just invest in it anyway.
All that advertising...all those Starbucks...all those supercenters and box stores...all those franchises....all those cheap toys and trinkets....
If you consider all the money that adds up to, I can imagine that it could put a hell of a lot of people to work producing real things that we can use. (like real food, for instance.)
Maybe the biggest mindset shift we're going to have to see is the whole idea that growth is good in the first place....
Growth is what brought us to this place.
The growth planet-wide looks more like a cancer to me. Terminal.
Time to bring on the cobalt treatment. We could use a bit of remission.
The gloomiest I ever get about all this is when I can imagine that this "oligarchy" of corpo-giants won't give up what they got without a fight. If they really do have world governments by the balls, perhaps they're so involved in their "game" that they will play to win (whatever that is) at any cost. And that would mean we all lose.