Thank you Rev2! <considering, "is that thank you in big enough letters?"

Greed is terrible. There is this mad thing in supermarkets this week of the year where people start shouting at workers and each other, heaping more glitter onto their trolleys. This desperation is more noticeable in the most up-market supermarkets.

Something gave me pause for thought. There was violent discussion in France about a television interview with people manning the blockages against the rise in fuel prices. One couple interviewed had four children. They were working a low-wage job, just below poverty line and therefore also on benefits. They had a wide-screen t.v. and bought their kids designer clothes. There was an outcry of absolute fury that these protesters are not marginalised, why are we paying out taxes for them to buy luxuries.

Only one writer defended them by saying: "when everything crumbles (falls apart), it's by consumption that people find their place in society".

Whoah!!! When I go to remote places, I meet mostly moralists who think they are "rejecting" consumption. Occasionally it's true that someone has actually cut down trees with their own hands and built themselves a house out of mud. Occasionally someone has exceptional artisan skills. But mostly they are fooling themselves, especially when they say that everyone should reject consumption just like they do.

I'm currently scared both by the desperate, empty greed of cities and the insular idealism of remote places. Where will I find people with a sense of humour and of proportion in my world???

Returning to the city's aggression always brings me up with a physical shock, but aggression is real, greed is real, exploitation of each other is real... and if the huge city populations moved back to the countryside we will have nothing left?

In an economic downturn while institutions struggle to adapt, profiteers are the most active form of life.