Our current economic model -- implemented all across the globe as the partner platform to advancing "democracy" in developing nations -- is not sustainable.

The time has come for us to recognize that any model that is dependent on over-consumption and easy credit and that disproportionately rewards the rich at the expense of services for the rest cannot work over any long period of time. Capitalism alone is not the saviour of society.

Since last August, the Federal Reserve Board Chair, Ben Bernanke, has told us that the "weakness" in the economy has been "contained". First, it was "contained" within the sub-prime mortgage industry. Then, in December, it was "contained" in the broader home-loan sector. Now, it will be "contained" by resolving the liquidity pressures faced by some banks who cannot now use their mortgage-backed securities as collateral. To that end, the Fed will now offer some $200 million in loans to these big banks, who will put up these mortgage-backed securities as collateral for Treasury securities. That means our government -- you and I -- are now holding financial instruments that are attractive to no one else on the planet. If they were, there would be no need for this new facility.

This is the third time in 6 months that the Fed has bailed out the banks, while also lowering their key interest rate significantly. Most observers expect yet another interest rate decrease next week and there is broad speculation there may be even more loan initiatives offerred to banks in the near-term.

Now, I'm not an economist, so it's very possible that these may be exactly the right things for the Fed to be doing right now. What concerns me, beyond these actions, is the context within which all this is happening. The home-loans in question are foreclosing at a record rate because the home values on which they were based were inflated and the terms under which they were established were not manageable for the homeowners after the first few years. The homes were purchased with little or no equity (the equity we now have in our homes, on average, is lower now than at any time since we have been keping the data...) because the initial interest rates were low and the approval process was easy, allowing folks to buy homes when they could not afford them under more sustainable circumstances, or to buy more house than they needed.

By the way, most of us have little to put down on a house any more because we don't save money any more. Our national savings rate is lower now than ever before.

Virtually the same circumstances (easy credit, lack of savings, a society focussed on consumption as status, the suffocating presence of retail promotion and the need for immediate gratification) also drive the crushing consumer debt of the middle class. That debt enabled the phenomenal economic expansion of the late 90s and early 2000s, but we are all now left with flat-screen TVs, IPods, X-Boxes, fast cars, big houses... no savings and family debt we can't service.

In the mean time, on the governmental level, while we continue to finance an unpopular war and short-term energy solutions, we are cutting the heart out of the most basic social services: education, health care, shelter, and even infrastructure maintenance.

This model is not sustainable. Immediate gratification and catering always to business and the wealthy does not adequately support community.

Sustaining our model requires the potponement of gratification. It requires that all of us, families and governments, invest in the future. Investing in an excellent education for all will develop a larger community of innovators and productive workers who can develop responsible products and solve major global problems in the years to come. Instead of turning our backs on immigrants, why not embrace and educate them?

Investing in adequate healthcare for all will lower long-term care costs and develop a more productive community.

Investing in adequate, affordable housing and food programs will develop more nurturing families, more secure kids and... a more productive community.

Sending $600 checks to everyone does not accomplish any long-tem goal. Funding the National Institutes of Health (whose annual budget is less than 1/2 of one quarter's profits at Exxon/Mobil...) does.

These kinds of investments will not pay off in any one Presidential term. They will take years to show a "return on investment." So what? I'm here for the long term... are you?