Do I drive the right car, wear the right clothes & live in the big house in the best neighborhood?

LET’S stop looking at the current financial wreck as some kind of short-term crisis.

Bad mortgages without adequate collateral aren’t the problem – they are symptomatic of the problem. We live in a society with a collective psyche that refuses to accept that there are limits on what one person can or should acquire and constantly pushes for bigger and shinier things.

Our entire economy is predicated on the endless acquisition of material goods (and deep-seated insecurity about our own positions in the world).

We have a consumption-based economy that requires people to keep buying things. And to spur this drive to buy, we have a media culture that works to undermine self-esteem and create inadequacy out of not having whatever it is that is being sold at the moment. At the same time, this media culture reminds us that we deserve more, and we can have more.

More and more over the past decade, this cycle of consumption has been fed by spending beyond our means:  Take out an equity loan to get that new car you want and go take that trip you’ve been dreaming of. Whilst you’re at it, take out a huge loan for the condo you’ve been eye-ing for some time.

Approving a 700 billion-dollar ‘bailout’ isn’t going to cure our economy because the real illness is within us all – We already have unimaginable wealth and yet are not content. If we actually had any sense of contentment with what we already possess and are secure in our own worth regardless of whether we whiten our teeth, color our hair or drive a cool car, we would not be in these bad times.