The Problem with Money

Many of the world’s most pressing environmental issues are caused by rampant consumerism, the notion that in order to have a high standard of living we need to keep buying more things – even when what we’ve already got is in perfectly good order and meets our needs fine. Most especially, the mountains of plastic and electronic waste produced every year, and the climate change caused by so many factories churning out so much material and so many ships and planes carting it around, can in large part be put down to unnecessary consumption of material goods. But is this really the fault of individuals? Or are we compelled to consume as we do, by and large, by manipulative forces in the world around us? As this extract from Chapter 3 of The Problem with Money argues, modern consumerism is little better than a modern form of slavery. This episode is also available as a blog post: https://problemwithmoney.wordpress.com/2021/05/08/sold-out-society-is-consumerism-the-new-slavery/

What with the new Hitachi trains predictably proving to be less than perfect, now seems a good time to revisit an old friend, the Intercity 125 HST. HSTs were used on the Great Western line from the late 1970s, lasting right up until 2019 when the entire fleet was dropped from the mainline in favour of the new Hitachi trains, which are much less comfortable for passengers. Today, Saturday 8th May, almost exactly two years since the last HSTs were withdrawn by GWR from the main line, most GWR services have been cancelled due to a fault in the new trains. Having put all their eggs in one basket, perhaps GWR will come to realise the folly of their ignoring calls to retain some HSTs in mainline use. I doubt it. But the poem ‘Requiem for the Intercity 125’, published as part of a poetry collection under that name, summed up in a whimsical way my feelings on the matter, then and now. I hope you enjoy it. This episode is also available as a blog post: https://problemwithmoney.wordpress.com/2021/05/08/requiem-for-the-intercity-125/