“The Chinese Word For Crisis

...has two characters, danger and opportunity.”

This sentiment has become stock in the bad-news emails getting shipped around offices from HQ as "crisis" endures as the theme of the moment/year/decade?

Good thing we can turn to the wisdom of the ancient Chinese when what we like to call modern civilization is crumbling around us.

Even rich people from the South “get it”: "It’s kind of like we all went overboard. And we’re trying to get back to where we should have been,” says Sacha Taylor, of Atlanta, who wore a 10-year-old dress to a charity function, on the decline of conspicuous consumption. If the highlighted trophy wives of Atlanta lawyers wearing pre-worn clothes doesn’t signify the end of days, what does?

Since becoming a poor, I’ve had a lot of time to think, since thinking is free. I’ve also had a lot of time to rely on the generosity of friends who are willing to share what they have. So far, the “economic crisis” kind of feels like less stuff, fewer breakfasts served to me by people I don’t know and more time spent with the people I care about. I feel less like a consumer and more like a human.

Isn’t the cause of our “economic collapse” our God-given right as Americans to consume what we don’t need-- with money we don’t have? Given that this existence has forced billions of the world's people into a star-spangled choke hold, lamenting its loss seems to be about a rung above war criminal on the depravity ladder.

Bob Herbert of the New York Times says:

The seeds of today’s disaster were sown some 30 years ago. Looking at income patterns during that period, my former colleague at The Times, David Cay Johnston, noted that from 1980 (the year Ronald Reagan was elected) to 2005, the national economy, adjusted for inflation, more than doubled. (Because of population growth, the actual increase per capita was about 66 percent.)

But the average income for the vast majority of Americans actually declined during those years. The standard of living for the average family improved not because incomes grew but because women entered the workplace in droves.

As hard as it may be to believe, the peak income year for the bottom 90 percent of Americans was way back in 1973, when the average income per taxpayer, adjusted for inflation, was $33,000. That was nearly $4,000 higher, Mr. Johnston pointed out, than in 2005.”

So maybe we’ve stopped consuming, because only because we’ve been forced. But what does that mean as far as “quality of life” is concerned? How can we make a smooth u-turn on a narrow road that’s decades long and trillions of dollars deep?

"The Americans always do the right thing. After they've exhausted every other available option." –Winston Churchill