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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!!
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To: nihil who wrote (33563)3/31/1999 9:45:00 AM
From: Chuzzlewit  Read Replies (1) of 108807
 
Nihil, you suggested that I really ought to debate these things [measuring the worth of all things in dollars] with a smarter economist.

I've tried, and the sad truth is that the smarter the economist the worse the answer. I don't think this happened because we are in the thrall of congress. I think this happened because we are greedy. We are so jealous of our economically valued possessions that we lose sight of those things that cannot be valued with ordinary economic yardsticks. Generations later people will look back at us, envious of the things that we had and furious that we allowed them to be wasted. But they will repeat our errors.

Perhaps it is as many Conservatives say: we have become a society characterized by instant gratification. Paradoxically, their solutions exacerbate the problem because few of them believe that preservation is important. Reducing taxes is certainly not the answer. The Conservative criticism would have us believe that this is a recent phenomenon. I don't think so. I think it is part of human nature or at least western culture. One need only read the first few chapters of Genesis to get the flavor of the problem. We create a god who not only gives us permission, but instructs us to dominate nature instead of counseling us to live in harmony with a sense of stewardship of those incalculably valuable possessions. Despite our collective intellect we have yet to devise a way to rationalize human life as a continuum stretching forward indefinitely. Instead, economists have devised a calculus to rationalize greed.

CTC
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