Consumerism

Simon Griffiths graduated from Melbourne University with a Bachelor of Engineering and a Bachelor of Commerce. His love of problem solving, innovation and markets led him to work as an electrical engineer for ExxonMobil, then as an investment banker for Morgan Stanley before realising neither of these jobs appealed to him.

BEIJING - I received an email from a Chinese friend who touched down recently in Buffalo. She wants to experience Christmas in New York and she asked me if I could offer any suggestions on homestays for a taste of American life and customs. I started to think about it. I first thought of Craigslist, something my sister has used for temporary visits in New York. But then I thought that maybe someone would take advantage of her, being a foreigner. Knowing that she is Christian, I thought that maybe she could try and find a homestay through a church.

Recent news from the Arctic is that Greenpeace tried to block the drilling of a prospect well off the coast of Greenland, much to the chagrin of Cairn Energy Plc, the company who holds the lease for oil and gas concessions along that portion of the Greenlandic shore. The Arctic is widely believed to be the last, great unexplored region where resources like oil and natural gas, along with a host of precious metals, will be found in any significant concentrations, and thanks to global c

America is renowned for consuming more than any other nation. Perhaps this is a natural situation – in a free-market economy, prosperity is predicated on productivity growth, and productivity growth in turn requires high-levels of consumption. But there is nothing inevitable about this. There are plenty of free-market economies around the world that function perfectly without their respective populations buying as much as Americans do. So why do Americans consume so much?

It is amazing what can be accomplished by fear. That is precisely what many people across the planet are experiencing when it comes to the looming pandemic that is h1n1. I think parents have been hardest hit. With daily media coverage spouting the latest scary headlines, it makes it tough to decide whether or not to be inoculated. It's a menacing and trying time for us all.