Transition Whatcom

John de Graaf's film, Take Back Your Time, was a great examination of our national obsession with GDP

John de Graaf, the National Coordinator of the organization, TAKE BACK YOUR TIME, showed his latest film, “What’s the Economy for, Anyway?” at Re-Sources to a packed house. His main message was about American excess--too much consumption at too high a cost--leading to less and less happiness.

This film went through dozens of metrics including hours of work/week, mortality rates, medical costs, and compared to all other industrial nations, the US seems to excel only in our ability to consume and our high medical costs. In all other indicators, we lag far behind.

He pointed out a surprising statistic. Since our economy imploded in 2008, our national health has actually improved. He sites the fact that people have used job loss or the economic downturn to re-train, to reconnect with family and friends, to exercise more. We are driving less, factories are operating at lower capacity, and our air pollution has improved. He argues that we need to change our mindset from getting a growth economy back into full swing and instead find full employment using a European model that employs job sharing in a sustainable economy.
http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/forum/topics/john-de-graafs-film-...
His film actually quotes an early twentieth century Republican as the thematic basis for its argument.

Rather than using the Gross Domestic Product measurement that was developed in the 1930s (which includes military expenditures in its formula), the Republican leader suggested that an economy should be judged by its success in providing the greatest good for the greatest number of citizens over the long run.

The Republican in question? Gifford Pinchot.

Rather than judging economic success or failure on how much money one accumulates, de Graaf suggests that we need to instead measure our collective activities by how happy our citizens feel about their lives. As an example he shows that the four happiest countries--Sweden, The Netherlands, Denmark and Finland--have charted a path that is nearly opposite of the USAs. Their societies are very egalitarian, with minimal differences in extreme wealth and extreme poverty, they strive for a balance between work and non-work time, and they pay the highest level in taxes. Yet in taking the same survey on happiness as US citizens, they are more happy. We on the other hand are one of only four countries in the world that does not have a paid vacation policy, our executive/worker salary differential is 400:1 and of course we are livid if the extremely wealthy are forced to pay taxes.
 
If you missed the presentation, Take Back Your TIme has a website at:

http://www.timeday.org/

Also, if you would like more information about the film, check out this site:

http://www.eartheconomics.org/

You can actually watch "What's the Economy For, Anyway" at this page:

http://www.eartheconomics.org/Page74.aspx

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