About consumer economies

In a society that is politically and economically unstable, you cannot predict the future from the vantage of the present. You work and put money in the bank to save for a rainy day, but inflation suddenly soars and make your money worthless. The rule of the game of life seems to change randomly, so why would you invest in the future? You probably would not. You would focus on the present. People in volatile economies do not invest, because it is better to spend now that have their earnings lose value tomorrow.

The Time Paradox, Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd http://www.thetimeparadox.com/

Thats why you tend to find ridiculous situations in pourer economies, when a lot of money are thrown away on frivolous things (expensive cars, gadgets, parties, trips) by people that should put this money in retirement, medical or college funds instead. Or worse, by people that don’t even afford this kind of spendings, but cave to peer/society pressure.

The problem gets even deeper when this way of thinking/acting is becoming a status quo, especially if the economical instability persists more than one generation.

So you’ll end-up with a whole society of impulse-buyers with no or little future prospects, and that’s not an economy in witch you’d want to apply long-term business or life strategies.