It is interesting and strange that we humans feel empowered to put genes from bacteria into soybeans and build flying machines that go to the moon, yet feel powerless before the human construct known as "the economy". "The economy" is basically a series of agreements; it is not, like gravity, a rule. Yet we refer to it as if it were an entity, somehow apart from all of us, with its' own mind and needs and emotions.
In this time of depletion of natural resources and overfull landfills, increasing pollution and global warming, expanding human populations and mounting extinctions, in this time it would seem apparent to all of us that we must collectively consume fewer "consumer items" if we are to continue to live on this planet. But no. Rather, there is a bemoaning of a drop-off in consumer spending as this will cause deflation and a further downturn in "the economy". The answer? To jump-start "the economy". This is analogous to trying to jump-start your car which is not going anywhere because you have driven it into the river and are trying to use it as a boat. The appropriate action in this circumstance is not to jump-start, but to jump ship, as it were, and get a more useful means of transportation. An economy that is dependent on massive consumption of unnecessary goods is not an economy we want to jump-start. An economy that is dependent on people going into debt in order to purchase things they don't need in order to fulfill desires that will not be satiated is not an economy we need to prop up.
This global economic crisis is a great big heads up that what we have been doing isn't working. This isn't news to anyone who's been paying attention. It seems that we humans have a hard time acting with foresight, especially if such action would require conscious change. Well, the global economic crisis is a big slap across our collective face. We haven't been willing to change merely because change is the intelligent thing to do. Now that we've been slapped around a bit – and will continue to be – perhaps we can examine this human construct known as "the economy", and decide what kind of agreements we would like to operate under, what sort of economy we want. Or, we could, in some kind of tragic Greek or Shakespearean march towards a final act with dead bodies strewn all over the stage, just continue to try to 'jump-start', 'prop up', and 'invigorate' an economy that is doing us, and the other creatures on this planet, in.