Although from e-mail forwards, I liked the following:

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.

We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quit, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom.

- George Carlin

Isn't this what Annie Leonard also points out in her StoryOfStuff.com clip at 15:40 minutes through the video? She shows it with the National Happiness chart, and follows it with the enormously well done impression of people working harder to just switch between popular fashions/fads created by media/marketing of commercial corporations. Look at who is playing who for a fool.

Luxury
The whole idea of "luxury", infact, is built on the glitter of appearance/packaging with no additional real value added to the task/need - and the bragging right to be able to afford it is enough for the seekers of these luxury goods to keep on wanting to earn more to spend on the extra glitter. Of course, they must standout when they do. But others are not being left behind with "affordable luxury" - made cheaper by mass production or false look-alikes. Then people have to work for super-luxury that truly can't be mass produced. Then, in order to take care that their luxury is not contaminated by the commoners' presence, the luxury seekers have to start finding themselves more detached/alone/aloof from normal people. So they may be affording the costliest things, but their attempt to standout results in their inability to mingle and socialize - as they out-fashion almost everyone else out. Instead of sincere relationships, they either have false ones or they need to choose to have none at all.

Put that into an iterative circle like that of Anne Leonard's, and you know where our world is within a few iterations and where it is headed. Our love of machines/money/toys/things supersedes that of our love for man/person/friend/family/human/mankind/people/humanity. Whereas the reality is that these machines/toys/things/money have a strong correlation to the "creator(s) of the thing" i.e., his/her talent/ability/willingness/motivation/happiness. When you take that away, or make the creator's motivation itself as some other machine/toy/thing - you quickly see the bonds between people lost - unless they are through gifts/machines/toys/things that come through them. As a result, people no longer share themselves, they share what they can buy/afford in the store. There's no special touch to giving - and world is quickly getting used to it that there is no one special - except for the one that can afford them the most things they need. This is a key driver to false/pretend relationships based on an underlying pretext/motive. And the belief that money makes the world go round - without the ability to realize that the money will not save them in a desert of machines if there are no people behind them. And this belief that money alone is the supreme thing leads to comments to destroy people of a kind for the actions of one (or to just win lots of money), not realizing that people with such a race/creed/belief-system in reference has more than a right to live, those people basically provide our world (and the person making the racial comment) with a crucial component of the eco-system. That's the "narrow viewpoint" that the author George Carlin is pointing to above. Now do you/we see how the materials/consumption focused economy screws up the lives/views/happiness of its people?!

- Kaleem Aziz.