Stephen Roach - World To US: "Keep Buying Stuff You Don't Need So We Can Sell It To You"

[hatrack]

EDIT

Stephen Roach, the Asia chairman for Morgan Stanley and a speaker at the recent world forum in Davos, revealed a different take on America’s consumer culture, one that not only abrogates our consumer guilt but projects a message encouraging yet more consumption.

He said that most of America does not want to stop excessive consumption, enjoying as we do our creature pleasures. Much of the developing world agrees, saying, “We want you to keep consuming to excess so that we can sell you things you do not need.” Since America desires to continue its unfettered consumption habits, and since the developing world values us as an enormous block of customers that eventually will enrich them, we have achieved a strange kind of multicultural homeostasis.

What’s most fascinating is the mistaken assumption that the developing world is righteously indignant about America’s unimpeachable lifestyle. The reality is that most global citizens want to be like Americans, with all the luxury, excess and environmental impacts that go with it.

If the only route these people have to the Promised Land is to sell their resources, goods and labor to America (for things we don’t need), then any move toward voluntary limits among American consumers — including resource and energy efficiency — is an impediment to advancing our fellow human beings to a higher level of material comfort.

EDIT

http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20080204/COLUMN/265472000

[zbdent]

1. Mrs. ZBDent uses the bit from Robin Williams ...

in his standup, he did a bit about watching an infomercial about a belt that shocks your weight off. He said that people should strap it to their head and repeat (as it shocks) "I (ZAP) WILL (ZAP) NOT (ZAP) BUY (ZAP) STUPID (ZAP) SHIT! (ZAP)"

[NNadir]

2. Then there's Tom Wait's classic "Step Right Up..."

Something for the little lady
something for the little lady
Something for the little lady, hmm
Three for a dollar
We got a year-end clearance, we got a white sale
And a smoke-damaged furniture
you can drive it away today
Act now, act now
and receive as our gift, our gift to you
They come in all colors, one size fits all
No muss, no fuss, no spills
you're tired of kitchen drudgery
Everything must go

http://www.lyricsdir.com/tom-waits-step-right-up-lyrics.html

They come in all colors...

[ConcernedCanuk]

3. "most global citizens want to be like Americans" - hmmm I don't think so.

.
.
.

There are many societies that don't embrace the "white man's" culture.

Even native Americans,(and Canadians) are not happy with what the white man has done to their native lands and resources.

But seeing that the white man has forced himself on almost half the globe, the native people are forced to adapt, or perish.

I also disagree with the article's statement:

"What’s most fascinating is the mistaken assumption that the developing world is righteously indignant about America’s unimpeachable lifestyle"

I think that alot of the developing world IS indignant, and also that America's lifestyle is certainly not unimpeachable.

Give me some land, a field to plant, and animals to tend. A stream to fish, trees to cut for heat and lumber, and a forest to hunt for food and clothing.

I'd throw my keyboard away in an instant.

I wouldn't have time for it anyhoo!

[Nihil]

4. Stephen Roach: A man in denial trying to justify his addiction.

> ... any move toward voluntary limits among American consumers — including
> resource and energy efficiency — is an impediment to advancing our fellow
> human beings to a higher level of material comfort.

:banghead:

At least the author of the article has it right:
> How incredibly absurd that flagrant American consumers are being cheered
> for our excess so that new consumers can flagrantly, by their sheer
> numerical force, push the margins of environmental tolerance beyond the
> point of recovery. Within this self-destructive cultural equilibrium,
> everyone loses.