Always look on the bright si-ide of life . . .

"When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best..." *

The good news** is that if/when the Economy stops, that'll do more to slow down global warming than any policy measures undertaken thus far. So the sooner this thing tanks, the more habitable the planet will be in the long run.

I desperately wish I were making things up, but I'm pretty sure 'unsustainable' means 'can't keep going' means 'is going to stop,' and I can't help being a little surprised at how surprised most of the experts seem to be that the economy is imploding. Even the esteemed robber-baron/philanthropist Andrew Carnegie in his 1889 essay The Gospel of Wealth admitted that if capitalism ever slowed down it would fall apart, though in his colossal hubris he insisted that such a thing would never happen because in 'Progress!' through aquisition of wealth lay the destiny and salvation of the human race, and failure was unthinkable. Ever since Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776), the classic apologetic for growth-based economics, capitalist fundamentalists have steadfastly held to the dogma that The Economy is Making Life Better for Everybody and Will Make Life Better-er FOR-EV-ER, despite centuries of evidence to the contrary.

"The Economy Works, d'you hear? It does not cause Problems. If it isn't working for you you're the Problem and you don't really count. If fact you deserve to be poor and you should be thankful that we deign to use your labor at all. Living wage? Hah! Do you want our shareholders to complain? What would become of our profit margins? And if you could afford Land, or, heaven forbid, acquire Capital, you wouldn't be Labor anymore and that would never do. So we have to keep you convinced that The Economy is your unqualified benefactor and you would not survive without it. Because really it (and we its Masters) could not survive without you."

Welcome to the Matrix. This is the greatest commandment: Feed all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength to the Marketplace. It will give you in return an excess of food and trinkets, plenty of cheap entertainment and sensual pleasures, and a cleverly fabricated, comfortable illusion from which you (if you know what’s good for you) will never wake up. The second is like it: Serve yourself, use your neighbor, and once your own appetites are glutted, buy your way into Heaven with your ill-gotten wealth and garner as much self-congratulatory recognition for your ‘generosity’ as possible.

Everybody now!

"It's the end of the world as we know it
it's the end of the world as we know it
it's the end of the world as we know it
and I feel fine . . ."*

*Thanks to Monty Python and REM, respectively, for their lyrical gallows humor.
**The other, and more important, Good News is that the world is already saved.