> > > I don't mean to write this to try to guilt trip you or anything like that, just to question if it's ok to throw out your 23 inch tv to make room for a 25 inch when there's people dying for lack of very basic necessities.
> >
> > Yes, it's OK. That was an easy question!
>
> Economically, then yes. Morally, then if that person feels he has an obligation to help others, he should look at that obligation as a factor in his decision.

Hey, I studied Economics in college (well, the UK's definition of college) and yep, it needs people buying goods to stimulate the economy.

(Finally, after 4 years later, I finally found a use for it...)

Anyway. We live in a very wasteful culture where it is deemed as acceptable to just buy a replacement instead of reusing the existing products, which really isn't ideal at all, but society has come around to it as the 'norm'.

The question we have to ask is *why* there are people out there dying for the lack of basic necessities. There is enough food worldwide to feed everybody. There is enough land to build houses for everybody (maybe a few skyscrapers are needed). There is enough water worldwide for everybody. So why doesn't everybody have these things?

It comes down to greed again, people wanting control/power/wealth and will take it out of the environment around them.

That was only too clear in the immediate aftermath of the invasion of Iraq (I am not going to get into the debate on that. It's happened. I don't like the fact, but I'm not in a position of enough power to have stopped it.)

Reports were coming in that Saddam Hussein had overly lavish fittings in his palace(s?) including gold telephones. Yet outside people were surviving. Not thriving, but surviving. It's where there are groups who take more than their appropriate share of resources because they feel the world owes it to them or because they feel they have the right to take it.

If a little more time was spent giving (and teaching the wisdom and joy that giving gives), plus a little more time on adjusting our morals as a society, it wouldn't be a problem. (Oh how easily such things can be said)

I've digressed a bit from my original point (assuming I had one) but I guess what I'm saying is this: instead of 'take take take', if we give something back as well, it would all go a lot further. Having a new TV - yes is a 'take' - but it also gives some of the wealth back to the economy which pays for jobs, plus some of that money will go to the government in taxes for running the country and providing the essentials.

Sorry for the rant - especially such a long one.

My sister summed it up nicely though. She has had a few issues lately and resulted in my not getting her anything for Christmas as I felt she didn't deserve anything. (I am not alone in this mindset) Her only comment on the subject was "Where's my present then?" When I explained why not, she just hmphed off, followed by a yell of "Scrooge."

If that isn't materialism at its finest, I don't know what is.