Stuff and Happiness

* After many years of subversive columns, Cal Thomas finally said something worth considering: that today's economic mess may be due in part to our excessive use of debt to acquire stuff in vain quest for happiness. As a child of the depression, raised during WWII, of parents raised during WWI, I embrace this thought. Scientific studies show that happiness increases with prosperity up to the point where comfort and convenience are secured; but, beyond that, it depends more on spiritual matters, such as interpersonal relations, inclination for gratitude, sense of meaning, cultural participation, reconciliation with circumstances, intellectual stimulation, ie factors requiring little stuff. Some of us are too restless to achieve nirvana regardless of these factors.
* The earth cannot durably support America's appetite for stuff, so our stuff acquisition will diminish regardless of desires and policies. This trend is accelerating as large eastern populations gain wealth at our expense, owing to our choice to get stuff we don't produce. A worldwide consensus for responsible reproduction could moderate these trends.
* Today our capacity to produce stuff (& deplete & pollute) greatly exceeds our need for it, so the Reaganomic myth that investment will solve our socio-economic problems was false on it's face and is now proven so by collapse of many corporations since 1980.
* We could have all the stuff we need, and wealth would be better distributed, if everyone worked no more than 20 hours per week. Of course that wouldn't be sustainable in a global economy unless there were a world-wide consensus for it, as the French are learning.
* With these thoughts in mind, I promote various happiness-engendering activities that require little stuff, and I support every NGO that encourages responsible reproduction anywhere.

Economic Crisis

Almost a decade ago, it seemed clear to me that a great deal of sadness would issue form home loans exceeding home values and homeowners using such loans to support unearned lifestyles. Home buyers were cynically encouraged to speculate with borrowed money, governments welcomed this phony contribution to economic activity, and the whole economy became more brittle.
I did not predict how contagious foreclosures would be, each foreclosure resulting in devaluation of neighboring homes hence foreclosures there and so on. Banks now hold massive numbers of foreclosed and devalued properties vulnerable to destruction by copper thieves.
Banks and governments should have recognized this epidemic at least three years ago and formed a plan to nip it in the bud. Up front, they might have outlawed variable-rate loans, liar loans and greater-than-value loans, they might have restricted loans for new construction, they might have regulated mortgage backed securities, etc.
When defaults started increasing, delinquent homeowners should have immediately been offered restructured loans according to an industry-wide agreed-upon formula arranged by government. For example, each delinquent loan might be converted to a 30-year mortgage with principal and interest appropriate for the time of the original purchase, then with interest adjusted annually in proportion to the change of property value since that time. That would reduce the bank's income for a few years, until housing inventory is brought into balance, but bank's principal would be salvaged. This is a modest, more flexible variation of the THDA plan, which is coming too late.