I'm no left-wing tree hugger. I'm a centrist. Still, I can't help but notice that the U.S. economy requires citizens to continually consume more and more stuff forever for things to work. OK. There's nothing really wrong that. Certainly this fact is true in other countries like Great Britain and Germany as well and has been true here in the U.S for a long time.

What's wrong is that these days we're just so much better at consuming stuff than in other countries. More, it's that big business in the U.S. has become extraordinarily adept at convincing its citizens that they need stuff more than they need other things - things like time for friends and family.

What proof can I offer that we're really consuming so much and that most U.S. citizens aren't even aware of it? Go watch this twenty minute free online video and then honestly evaluate your own life, ambitions and desires. That's really all I'm after. Watch the video and think about it. By the way, I'm a hypocrite here. I'm trying to get my mind around my own behavior and motivations too.

If you don't want to watch the video, here's a summary of some of the facts she's compiled (click on the Fact Sheet). Remember that the lady who created this video and other content includes citations explaining how she arrived at these "facts."

Quotations from "Facts from the Story of Stuff" www.storyofstuff.com by Annie Leonard:

• In the past three decades, one-third of the planet’s natural resources base have been consumed
• The U.S. has 5% of the world’s population but consumes 30% of the world’s resources and creates 30% of the world’s waste
• If everybody consumed at U.S. rates, we would need 3 to 5 planets
• We each see more advertisements in one year than a people 50 years ago saw in a lifetime
• In the U.S. our national happiness peaked sometime in the 1950s
• In the U.S., we spend 3-4 times as many hours shopping as our counterparts in Europe do