World Economic Forum 2009

I think it was my second ever blog - 16 November 2007 - do check back - when I wrote:

"I don't know about you but I get very worried about economists who keep telling us that markets must grow in order to have success. Have they not worked out that we live on a sphere with limited resources?

There must come a time, it's just common sense, when we have to stop acquiring, we have to stop growing our aspirations, our belongings, our greed. Because it we don't do it voluntarily eventually it will catch up with us in a most unpleasant way.

I crave the day when a Chancellor of the Exchequer says we must maintain our current levels, we must make do and mend, we must grow the principle of re-use, re-manufacture, and build a truly sustainable and green economy. At the moment government ministers - especially those in favour of plastering the south east with high-density flats - use the word 'sustainability' all over the place with little regard to its true meaning. "

And so it has come to pass that the economic leaders of the world meet like headless chickens to discuss something that they no longer understand and over which they have no longer any control.

Was it just me that knew it all had to stop somewhere? No, of course not. I'd discussed my misgivings about the greed culture many times with friends. We often contemplated how a couple that we knew, without a full-time job between the two of them, had managed to acquire three houses. It turned out they just walked down to the mortgage shop, signed on the dotted line, and became property owners. Simple as that. Only of course we knew it wasn't that simple because common sense told us it couldn't last.

Even though it's all now happened, the baby has gawn darn the plug'ole with the bath water, still we hear nothing about sustainability. Still government ministers talk about economic growth and debt as it if were something that can be sustained infinitely. With the truth staring them in the face they still don't seem to 'get it'. Meanwhile thousands of ordinary people, many of whom never made a greedy decision about property or possessions have been plunged into spiralling financial disaster.

We must start talking about a financial system which is infinitely sustainable and that will support a life-style that is sustainable. That means less greed for all of us. There is absolutely no point in aspiring to go back to the position that we were in originally. 16 November seems a long time ago but my wishes have not changed.

Growth now fettered

I've just looked back and it was November last year when I blogged with a plea for sustainability to overtake the greed and unsustainable growth that the then Chancellor, now Prime Minister, was championing.

Now the chickens have come very firmly home to roost. I'm not one of those who feel aggrieved that we, the tax payers, have to foot the bill for all the borrowing. I'm content that government has done what is necessary to stop confidence pouring out of the economy. The alternative was unthinkable, so I won't even contemplate it.

But now that we're once again on an even keel - well, I hope we are - we shouldn't be talking about economics in terms of where we were because where we were was a very dangerous precipice. We need to be considering our future from a position well back from the edge of that particular cliff.

The middle classes, who will no doubt gripe about the reduction in their foreign holidays and the cost of taxing their cars, are not really hard up. They don't really have a clue what it's like counting the pennies - they have only ever counted tenners. The pensioners, God bless them, who spent their teens during WWII, will no doubt make do and mend, as they did then and consequently fare much better than those of use who have lived in more fortunate times.

Then there's a whole load of people who will have to come to terms, for the first time in their life, that when they want something they cannot necessarily just go out and buy it. They are going to have to start living within their means, taking some account of the value of their existing possessions. They will not be able to buy a new three piece suite for Christmas with payment deferred into eternity on a buy now, regret at leisure scheme. And thank goodness for it.

I long for the day when the whole high street is full of charity and used goods shops, and when builders take back to a builders' merchant all the excess that's left on site on the completion of a job. I actually want to have to meet my neighbours and enjoy their company rather than sit in my own house watching yet more TV. I want to live frugally and in harmony with the planet.

We've had a near miss with the banking crisis so please, let's learn some lessons. Let's have some real clear leadership on those matters that are of real importance and let's face up to the fact that our good fortune comes at a price for the planet and we squander it at our peril. Otherwise our next brush with disaster may be terminal and irreversible.

Unfettered growth

I don't know about you but I get very worried about economists who keep telling us that markets must grow in order to have success. Have they not worked out that we live on a sphere with limited resources?

There must come a time, it's just common sense, when we have to stop acquiring, we have to stop growing our aspirations, our belongings, our greed. Because it we don't do it voluntarily eventually it will catch up with us in a most unpleasant way.

I crave the day when a Chancellor of the Exchequer says we must maintain our current levels, we must make do and mend, we must grow the principle of re-use, re-manufacture, and build a truly sustainable and green economy. At the moment government ministers - especially those in favour of plastering the south east with high-density flats - use the word 'sustainability' all over the place with little regard to its true meaning.

They sprinkle they planning-speak proposals with it, while they advocate the building of nasty blocks of bleak housing. These they will built cheaply, not to last, but probably to be reviled and pulled down in an orgy of regeneration and even higher density development in another 30 years.

In a town near me a supermarket chain wants to pull down an enormous building that it only put up about 20 years ago. What for? To build an even bigger retail centre. And the shop - the enormous warehouse that passes for a shop - that is there already contains multiples. Multiples of everything, masses of choices for the same product; thousands - probably millions of lines - of things that none of us really need.

Is that the sort of growth that is really going to ensure that we can sustain our comfortable lifestyle? I very much doubt it.