Kooiti,
I agree with everything you say. The science of economics is about the
allocation of scarce resources. But as the economist J K Galbraith pointed
out, when the Europeans arrived in North America they found that the
resources there were not scarce. There was enough land for everyone,
provided the native population was removed, and there was even gold to be
had for the picking, and later oil. This paradigm of unlimited resources has
become embedded in the American psyche, and exported back to the rest of the
developed world through US (and Australian, they had a similar experience)
dominance of the media, for instance Hollywood and CNN. (Rumsfeld seemed to
think that by invading Iraq, he would change all the Iraqis into rich
Americans.)
Now, it is not only Americans who believe that everyone can achieve the
American Dream. But in the US it is turning sour. The land is all owned,
and expensive. The gold fields are worked out, and the gold towns that grew
around then have changed to ghost towns. The US oil is on the wane and
unable to provide enough to maintain Americans in the way of life to which
they have become accustomed. Now the world's oil resources are about to
wane. Soon everyone is going to understand what scarce resources really
mean. That's if abrupt climate change does not hit us first!
Waur doomed,
Cheers, Alastair.
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated
venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of
global environmental change.
Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the
submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not
gratuitously rude.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
