#318 / Growth

I am reading The Wall Street Journal these days, my subscription having been paid for with expiring airline miles I wouldn't otherwise have been able to use. The paper is delivered to my porch every morning, Monday through Saturday, and I have found it enlightening. Its reporting and its editorials are absolutely dominated by a total preoccupation with "growth." I suppose this might have been expected, but I was, frankly, unprepared for the virulence of this growth fixation. Virtually every day I see stories that prove that the most ruthless penalties will be applied to corporations that fail to "grow" at a double digit percentage. No mercy will be shown to such corporations, or to corporate leaders associated with any such failure to "grow." Even Apple is not exempt. Much less McDonald's. Past success provides no reason for continued support. It is a "What have you done for me lately?" world.

The image here is from a story in the Friday, November 9, 2012 edition of The Journal: "McDonald's Is Feeling Fried." For the first time in nine years, there is a "drop in its monthly same-store sales." I am not actually sure what this means, but I get the "drop" part. If growth isn't continuous, without a pause, it is obviously time to "fry" the offender.

A preoccupation with "growth" is, literally, "frying" the planet.

Our "next generation" had better learn how to celebrate a "steady state economics."