How Much Is Too Much?

How much is too much? Last Thanksgiving, I was called upon by my two children, now adults in their 30’s, to prepare Giblet Gravy for the Thanksgiving feast. A short-coming in their up-bringing, admittedly done by me, left them with the desire but not the know how to prepare the necessary accompaniment to the mashed potatoes. I left it to my daughter to add the final salt and pepper to the gravy advising her to spice the gravy to her taste. In her exuberance, too much salt was added and we had to add additional chicken stock, flour and butter to dilute the excess salt. Ultimately, the gravy turned out well and all enjoyed the traditional flavors and trappings of the Thanksgiving feast.
It has occurred to me that the experience with the gravy serves as a micro study of what is going wrong with our economy. As a people, very prosperous indeed, we have somehow lost, if ever we knew, the answer to just how much is too much. We won the global wars of economy surpassing all of Europe, after the 1st World War, and accumulated a national largess which overshadowed all other nations. Our rise to become the wealthiest nation on earth came about because of an abundance of natural resources and our free-wheeling attitudes allowing anyone with vision and desire to exploit those resources. We became the wealthiest nation on planet earth and are still leading all other nations in all measures of wealth.
Our measures of wealth are mixed. From the huge caches of wealth accumulated by petroleum extractors to the ownership of rights to the micro-processing of data there is measurable wealth present in all nations around the world. Whether one measures durables or nondurables, the presence of wealth is discernable. The only measure of wealth that is difficult to quantify is the wealth we ascribe to the value of natural resources. All that can really be said is that the value of natural resources is being exhausted. Evince the need now to explore for petroleum in our oceans rather than upon now depleted land reservoirs.
We are now faced with the prospect that we must continue to grow our economy in order to maintain the level of abundance we have enjoyed. Other nations, however, stand in the way of our desired growth and are even now working to raise their nations above America. And, if Coase’s Theorem is true and has grown legs, there is a finite level of resources by which we measure wealth that is quickly being approached. We will pay for transactional costs by diminishing our wealth and largess. Said another way, we will find ourselves trading wealth back and forth with other countries with our desires, happiness and prosperity hanging in the balance and subject to the vagaries of wealth on the move.
America’s natural resources are still abundant though diminishing. The value of those resources has, however, diminished because of the rising price of exploiting those resources. It is less expensive, and uses less of our wealth, to secure oil from the Middle East than it is to extract it from our own soils. Moreover, we are not much inclined to look for alternatives to our energy needs that would reserve and preserve our natural resources. In fact, and as against scientific analysis which shows that we are quickly approaching an irreversible point, we continue to utilize carbon based fuels. And, of course, we are in fact transferring our wealth to the Middle East, in the short run, to secure less expensive carbon based fuels.
Not only are we suffering on the pure economic side of the equations, we are losing on the philosophical side as well by not knowing how much is too much. There was a time in which greed was viewed as a vice rather than a virtue. In our rush to increase largess, we turned a blind eye to moral questions about how we accumulate wealth at the sake of others. Now, a goodly portion of our national largess is held by a very small number of people. In the not too distant future, even more of our national largess will be held by a very small number of people. It is hard to convince people, however, because they enjoy just enough of the national largess to distract them from this unbalanced accumulation of wealth in the few.
When we turn on our TVs and see from world news reports just how destitute others are around the world and compare their estate to that of ours, we think ourselves truly right in our capitalistic society. Rather than say, “there but for the grace of God go I”, we smugly conclude that we have a better idea of how to exploit the world’s wealth. History supports that conclusion as well. By far, freely democratic countries fare much better than older archaic forms of societal rule. In time, we all hope to become one human family seized of the liberty the Americans wrested from England in the late 1700’s. Our experience with democracy has grown firm legs and serves as the mark for all countries to strive for even as against tradition and religion.
The problem with the American psyche regarding economics, however, is exacerbated by international news for the reasons set forth above. We do not think in terms that, “there but for the grace of God go I”, but rather that we are right and others are wrong. This has allowed us to turn the vice of greed into a virtue. We are all now patterned after and accepting of Gordon Gecko’s “greed is good” mantra. But greed impoverishes. It is a vice no matter how much it is exalted. And, it has grown out of hand. No one has asked, “how much is too much?”
Presently, there are two impoverished nations in the world clamoring to secure nuclear capacity in order to force countries of wealth to redistribute wealth to them. The history of the nuclear arms race was not lost on them. The United States forced the old Soviet Union to stand down by presenting itself as the projected winner in a theorized war. It proved to be an effective way to impose will and now two backward countries, containing few natural resources, are poised to present themselves as viable contestants for the world’s wealth. That one is taxed with a debilitating religion and the other with a failed ideology matters not. Both are preparing their countries to take if they do not receive.
If our leaders and great thinkers do not come up with a vision in answer to the question of how much is too much, we will likely have to engage in another war of attrition. We will likely see a diminishing prosperity for all but a very few. And in the interim, we may deplete our natural resources to the point from which there will be no recovery.
I had not intended this to be a dooms day message. But it seems that even those who continue to believe that our continued prosperity will come only by diminishing government, eliminating social programs and removing all restraints to capitalism ought to be asking, “how much is too much.” And if they answer, “enough is never enough,” then they need to take ownership of the famine that is sure to follow when all our natural resources are exhausted or taken from us by force. And if any are left behind, let us carve upon their tombstones, the epitaph; “I was greedy and damned proud of it.”
As for me, I would grow government so as to have an ample supply of steel-fisted regulators on Wall Street, in the banks and in corporate offices everywhere to insure that practices overstepping and overreaching merely to accumulate vast fortunes are knocked down before they get out of hand. I would also continue taxes at a level insuring that those who have been impoverished by those whose greed has robbed the majority of a decent existence, are recompensed enough to enjoy a decent existence. Lastly, I would forebear all but the minimums to sustain life in order to find a way to preserve our diminishing national resources for the future seeking renewable energy. And, upon my tombstone, I hope I earn the right to have inscribed, “he numbered among those who cared for his fellow man.”
So I question; “how much is too much?” Hopefully wisdom will guide us rather than mere intelligence. Intelligence is gained by learning from one’s mistakes whereas wisdom is gained by studying the mistakes of others. Putting too much salt in the gravy was a mistake that I learned from. Allowing greed to become a virtue is also a mistake that we all can learn from. We’ve accumulated a lot of intelligence over the ages, let us now gather wisdom from all that intelligence and renumber greed as a vice.