Penny-Wise and Pound-Foolish

Dear Reader,

I like to define sustainability as not using up resources faster than they can renewed. If we think this through, it has wide-ranging implications for all human activities, covering areas as diverse as our lop-sided reliance on fossil fuels, and the exploitation of workers.

On a more immediately personal level, one aspect of a sustainable lifestyle is not living beyond our means,

We have been violating both the more general and the individual aspects of sustainability for years. We have been living not just beyond our means, but also beyond everybody else’s, and the planet’s, means.

One of the consequences of this collective orgy of self-indulgence (that some incorrigibles still call the American way of life) is that even those people who have been leading reasonable, responsible lives have to pay for the errant ways of the rest.

The future taxes to pay for the federal government’s stimulus package are part of that payment.

That is unfair, but it is less unfair, less damaging and certainly less expensive than doing nothing.

The deficits that the federal government and many state governments have been building up are unsustainable, there is no doubt about it.

Accusations hurled across party lines about those deficits are childish temper tantrums: both Democratic and Republican administrations spend money like drunken sailors, whether they have it or not. Our Wisconsin state government is a tragi-comical illustration of that (as is the federal government, but the party faithful have notoriously short and selective memories).

But as every country has the politicians it deserves, we have to accept a big chunk of the responsibility for the state of the economy and of our finances.

One of the biggest obstacles to a more sustainable society i our expectation of instant gratification and a corresponding unwillingness to make sacrifices now greater benefits later.

The political battle cries of ‘no new taxes’ or ‘tax cuts’illustrate that attitude.
Except for the most hardcore libertarians, we all expect government services of some sort - some more, some less.

But the populist crusade against taxes (and the fact that our tax structure is exceedingly complex and deeply unfair) has led to a situation where we are basically in denial about the need to pay taxes, let alone raise them.

It is part of economics 101 that we need to invest if we want to consume. Consumption without investment is like harvesting without planting: it gets harder year after year until there is nothing left to consume.

But the benefits of investing don’t become obvious until a few years later. And because we want instant gratification, we don’t invest.

That’s why we expect quarterly reports from corporations, instead of yearly ones; that’s why we refuse to spend tax dollars on education; that’s why we have crumbling roads and bridges and no public transportation; that’s why we have the most inefficient health care system in the western world; that’s why we have the most polluting power plants in the western world; that’s why we have an incompetitive automobile industry.

Penny-wise and pound-foolish: it is why we buy the cheapest crap in big-box stores and in the process export our own jobs to China.