What $10,990 bought in 1955....

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

48. Nobody is suggesting that your purchases be curtailed or

in any way regulated. Buy what you want; nobody is stopping you or trying to say you should be prohibited from buying the biggest, fanciest house you want.

However, maybe it would be a good thing for our country and the world if people would voluntarily choose to buy houses and other things that aren't necessarily the biggest or the best, and instead invested in those that produced a little smaller footprint on the environment, that used up fewer resources, that ate up less land and burned less fuel for heat and light, that didn't result in the destruction of woodlands and wetlands to build. Maybe it would be nice if people would consider such things -- how am I benefiting or harming my city, my world? -- as well as what they just want for themselves.

Or is that too much of a hippie kind of worldview for you?