Let's do more with less

The current financial market troubles have led me to look more closely at our economic ideas and rules. Capitalism is based on so called growth, which means the economy is stuck if you don't grow or if it grows too slow. In a certain way it makes sense: if you sell more you can enjoy more material things, which generates more spending and therefore more money for others as well. That way a huge amount of people benefit from those 100 USD that you spend. Even if you just put it in the bank it contributes to society because the banks can't stand the temptation of writing a loan to the first person who wants to buy anything ... even an overvalued house.

Here's the problem with investments: If the market for cars will grow 10% next year as the economy is going well (this is not now by the way) and every car maker wants to own those 10%. For that they need to invest heavily in marketing, production, etc. So as everybody is investing to grow faster than all the others, the market has to grow 20% to justify the total investment made by the sector ... so big surprise ... many are going to loose money. That's capitalism: everybody borrows money in the wave of positivity and greed and then ... what a surprise, the growth wasn't sustainable!

It's a myth that we need to make more and more money to develop. It's a big lie. The real economic advances were made because technology enables us to make useful things for much less money. A hundred years ago a factory worker in Europe (or anywhere else) couldn't afford to go to the doctor, couldn't afford a phone, decent lighting, let his children study, enough clothing to use clean ones every day and so forth. Pens, paper, computers and a whole lot of other stuff got much cheaper during their existence. That is making more with the same. That is progress. There is always enough money for business ideas that create value for all, including money.

Investments, credit and spending should be aimed at products and services that improve the lives of everybody. Credit that is given to companies that want to make, or buy, stuff like cigarettes, alcohol, chemical cleaning products, V8 5 liter pickup trucks and chemical fertilizers should be limited and/or be done with high interest rates. Big part of those interest rates should then go into quality investments and donations.

So let's not make ourselves crazy: let's do more with less. Let's start by realizing that we are not more if we do more or have more.