I was listening (on National Public Radio, it might have been a BBC show) to an economist type person saying that the U.S. needs to grow the economy (GDP, apparently not the per capita version) at 3% for things to work well. Not at all an easy thing, and being that we have a baby boomers bulge entering into retirement, such would seem to require a massive increase in immigration to supply the needed workers.
Now, I can kind of see that keeping the GDP in proportion to the population as maybe being a good thing, but even now it seems like a big chunk of production is of things of dubious need.
More production requires more consumption, and we are already (largely) producing more that we have any real need to consume. Production/consumption has gone (for the population as a whole) from bare survival, to comfortable survival, to luxury survival, to "more crap than we know what to do with". Of course, such is most extreme for the 1%, and not happening for a lot of the 99%.
It seems to me that a capitalistic economy is a Ponzi or pyramid or something scheme, that is ultimately doomed to "the big crash".
I guess this topic kind of ties into Faith's Marxism topic.
A friend once said "There is a term for unrestrained/unlimited growth - It's cancer."
Moose
Added by edit (also in message 11):
Edited by Minnemooseus, : Added by edit...
Professor, geology, Whatsamatta U
Evolution - Changes in the environment, caused by the interactions of the components of the environment.
"Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer." - Bruce Graham
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." - John Kenneth Galbraith
"Yesterday on Fox News, commentator Glenn Beck said that he believes President Obama is a racist. To be fair, every time you watch Glenn Beck, it does get a little easier to hate white people." - Conan O'Brien
"I know a little about a lot of things, and a lot about a few things, but I'm highly ignorant about everything." - Moose 
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