Recently a morbidly obese woman fell on her 2 year old nephew and killed him. At 800 some pounds she was confined to her home and could barely walk, let alone control a fall onto the child whose skull she crushed. The police had to come to her bedroom to charge her with murder, but she is already in a prison.
It seems there are more and more examples of what used to be shocking Discovery Channel fodder: people who are so morbidly obese they are bedridden. They can do nothing for themselves. They can’t walk, let alone get to the bathroom. I know of no job you can hold in that condition, so I can only assume they are not bringing in income with which to pay a caregiver. So someone in their life is enabling them to be that way. Someone is bringing them food, otherwise instead of being so fat they can’t move, they would starve. Even if they ordered out for pizza, someone has to walk to the door, get it, pay for it, and serve them.
Their entire existence is based on massive consumption. No productivity, just chronic destructive consumption that will lead, in most cases, to their ultimate demise.
It reminds me a little bit of our economy. In a way, our expanding waistlines, our whining about body acceptance and moaning about the various ailments that accompany extravagant consumption, are interesting by-products of our over-consumption.
We live in a consumption based or service economy, as opposed to a manufacturing or production based economy now. We have lost a ton of factory jobs in recent memory, due to profit-killing regulatory burdens here and/or cheaper, easier labor environments overseas. We now paint eachother’s nails and buy cheap things at WalMart that are made in Asia. Actually most of my manicurists seem to be Asian as well. So what is it that we do, exactly? Shuffle around TPS reports, flip burgers, scratch each other’s backs… or something. But its not manufacturing or making anything, really. Except maybe software or weaponry stuff. Jobs you need a Master’s or better to get. No, we’re more and more made up of services. Many analysts think an economy based solely on spending money is just as valid an economy as any. The government affirms this by sending checks to spur our consumption when market indicators hint that we might be trying to get out of bed, erm, debt. A consumer bail-out, of sorts.
But is it really just as valid? Would the world economy really collapse if we stopped consuming? What about the caregiver to the morbidly obese person? When the patient dies, does that caregiver now starve because they’ve lost their job - feeding an unproductive person to death, at their own expense? No, they are now free to seek more productive things to do with that time. It will be the same with the global economy when US consumers stop their gluttony. We will stop being a type of broken window. The question is – will we stop overconsuming because we found the willpower to change to a healthier lifestyle, one of production and saving, and not beating up on our businesses with overburdensome, job-killing regulation, or will we just die of massive coronary thrombosis? In other words, complete economic collapse.
Our debt is like 1,000 pounds of flesh imprisoning us in our own body. Its no sin to borrow and have debt, per se. But it is one thing to borrow investment capital to build a factory. Quite another to ship that factory off to some other economy, and keep borrowing so that we can have a big screen TV instead.
Consider David Meza, whose story is not uncommon:
"David Meza, of Beaverton, Ore., is struggling to escape that trend. Meza, 47, worked 14 years assembling heavy-duty trucks for the Freightliner truck company. But when most of the production operations were moved to Mexico, he was laid off in March 2007." Quoted from here
Now, I’m not saying American workers are lazy – no, we work our butts off. There are thousands of David Mesas who would love to still be working, but sadly he is now an economic muscle that will atrophy from disuse. Our economy on the whole has stopped producing hard goods. We import everything, and we basically export dollars and weapons now. And you wonder why our military industrial complex rules the world and why the constant saber rattling. Sure we could talk and negotiate for peace. But war is so much more expensive. I digress.
We consume massive amounts of STUFF and don’t make anything anymore. We have to pay for all of this STUFF with value, not just money. Money, you can print all day long, and it will continue to buy more stuff for awhile, but soon China will realize the position they are in when they keep buying our securities and sending goods. They are bringing us buckets and buckets of fried chicken and getting nothing in return. Nothing but promises that someday we’ll get out of bed, walk again, get a job and pay them back. We keep promising. Will they keep believing?
Oh, and here’s a man who has actually lost 500 pounds and might break the overconsumption model the not-6-foot-under way. He lives in Mexico.