Is the global economy’s recession ending? Some leading economists, including the often skeptical nobel prize winner Paul Krugman, believe we might just be the start of a turnaround. So, are we also done with our greed detox?

(from Salon.com)

That’s really what this time period has felt like to me, a
ideological detox from the notion that greed and indulgence are great
things, no longer the best of human qualities. We have seen the
(temporary) collapse of the philosophy that unlimited growth is
possible for economies, and that conspicuous and opulent consumption is
what to strive for personally.

But how does the mind really work? If the economy recovers in the 2nd half of 2009, as many think it just might, will we just go back to mindless consumption, trashing the planet? How well do human beings remember lessons?

Part of me, just part of me, wishes this financial crisis would cut longer and deeper, so that it would cut into our habitual assumptions of happiness more fully. I want the recession to go on. On the other hand, a lot of my friends are stressed out and out of work, so maybe we’ve already learned our lesson and are ready for the next (impermanent) boom.