Progress?

Christmas was fun, but a little short. I was able to get a ride to and from home... thanks Jake and Kristin.

One thing really struck me on my ride on Interstate 94: the expansion of retail. There were so many outlet malls and specialty stores and big box stores that weren't developed the last time I rode through.

I began to wonder... were these new stores necessary? Is there any reason for needing one more Gander Mountain that's 5 miles closer than the other one? Can't we pretty much get everything we need at a Target or Wal-Mart? Maybe I'm overworked and underpaid, but I can't understand how some people have the extra time and money to spend at these new stores, and I don't see what makes these new stores so special. It's almost their "newness" alone that attracts shoppers. Maybe there are lots more people who are richer and a lot more bored than I. If that's the case, I'd say they'd be better off spending their money taking a vacation to a different country, maybe learn a different culture... that would be more worthwhile.

I understand that most business models have some sort of growth plan. And I understand that a lot of people's jobs are dependent on growing sales. But I fear that we're going too far as an economy to make consumers buy things that are really unnecessary, to the point where everyone is going to be sorely in debt.

A couple days after Christmas, I was watching CNBC (which is ubiquitous around my mom and stepdad's house during the day), and the anchors were complaining that retail sales this holiday season were ONLY up 6.6 percent, instead of 8 percent like last year. Now I'm no economist, but why can't we be satisfied with a 6 percent growth? Can't we have a system that doesn't force us to BUY BUY BUY? There's got to be some breaking point eventually, and I'm guessing by that point the ice caps will have melted from our selfish consuming ways.