Profits now, nothing later

When you are interesting in doing business ethically, you have to consider the consequences down the line, and unfortunately big business in America has never done that. It is like farming, and I grew up in the city so I am no expert on farming. But I did learn the principle of rotating crops. You could potentially get more yield by planting the same crop, or more profit by planting a more expensive crop, in the short term, but your soil will erode and you will have a finite field instead of limitless one. That is the principle that has been ignored by big business.

I think that they ignored it out of a combination of ignorance, stupidity, hubris, and the realization that they can destroy the viability and the environment of one area, leave it gutted, and then just move on and do the same to another. Those “areas” are starting to connect and become regions, and one of those “areas” at this point is called the United States. If you doubt it, look at the condition of the dollar and the value of American real estate. Land in America is diminishing in worth. I think that this is part of why we have the globalization of the world economy, so that the businessmen that sucked America dry can invest that money in places like China and continue the cycle.

There was once a lot of oil under cheap land in Texas, so oil became the foundation of the American economy, and since that was where the money was, and money buys power, oil interests became the government. The only problem is, oil is finite, and the environment has been ravaged by over-consumption and the automobile, not just as a source of transportation, but as a status symbol, and a means of transporting goods that perhaps would be better traded locally.

Sustainability should be the calibrator of any intelligent economic system. At the core of ours is greed, and an empty husk where a collective soul should be.