Defined Terms Business Plan Invitation Letter Attachment SWOT Analysis

Critics Of Economic Materialism means:

1. “The Gods Must Be Crazy”.

A Bushman of the Sho tribe named Xi a noble savage who was used to leading a simple, fairly utopian life. Xi salvaged a Coke bottle which was jettisoned in the Kalahari Desert from an aircraft in the 1980 movie classic, “The Gods Must Be Crazy”.

Xi takes the evidence of Western civilization back to his people, and they use it for many tasks. The people start to fight over the Gods Gift, so he decides to return it to the God--where he thinks it came from. In his quest to throw the evil object over the edge of the earth, Xi encounters two people from Western "civilization," a haphazard doctor and a tyrannical despot.

Following Xi’s insight of Western civilisation, he tells the children about the people he had met: "heavy people ... who seem to know some magic that can make things move," but are "not very bright, because they can't survive without their magic contrivances."

2. Ross Gittens - Australian Economist and journalist

Gittens' new book, Gittenomics focuses on behavioural economics which -

(i) cites many examples of the folly of Economic Materialism; and

(ii) calls for more attention to human happiness rather than your ‘bottom line’.

3. Clive Hamilton - Executive Director of The Australia Institute

Hamilton’s Growth Fetish (2003) contends that the main problem in today’s Australia is not poverty and disadvantage but affluence where -

(i) the real yearning is not for more money, but for authentic identity; and

(ii) the future lies in creating a society that promotes the things that do improve our well-being.

Hamilton -

(a) calls for politicians and others to pay more attention to community well-being; and

(b) urges us to get out of the shopping malls and into the world of meaningful relationships and spiritual fulfilment.

Clive Hamilton teamed up with Richard Denniss to write Affluenza (2005) which contends consumerism has gripped the Western world like never before - over-working to buy more toys we don't have time to play with, so we discard them for newer toys. Our houses are bigger than ever, but with fewer occupants. Our kids go to the best schools that we can afford, but we hardly see them. We've got more money to spend, but our debt levels are skyrocketing.

Adoring the rich and famous at the cost of our own family, friends and personal fulfilment, whereupon stress, depression and obesity are at record levels.

Affluenza contends Western society is addicted to over-consumption. It tracks how much Australians overwork, the growing mountains of toys we discard, our self-medication panacea where anti-depressants are doled out like boiled sweets.

Fortunately some change is happening usually within the higher socio-economic suburbs from older folk who have heard advertising spin for decades and evidence it spin faster and louder. More and more Australians are deciding to ignore the advertisers, reduce their consumer spending and recapture their time for the things that matter.

4. John Carroll – Professor of Sociology at La Trobe University

Carroll's re-write of Humanism, the Wreck of Western Culture (2004) evidenced The Guardian review it's "overblown, utterly misguided, sometimes downright dangerous, not to mention half-crazed, but important and at times brilliant."

Carroll insists -

(i) contentment cannot be found in the shopping centre or local club, or playing with toys such as a Plasma TV or iPod; and

(ii) we need something to believe in; we need to connect with our inner, essential being; we need to connect more meaningfully with ourselves and others.

Carroll believes that a high focus on religion can provide such a state of happiness. This Business Plan contends that YELP can achieve the same and more because it applies the basic strategy of all military forces the world over, since time immemorial, to harden their troops to survive battle.

1. to 4. above offer various observations from eminent economists and sociologists which confluence that Economic Materialism has material Escalating Fallout so too many of our Brownfield Infrastructure troops are too soft to survive battle.

This Business Plan deploys a Cause and Effect Logic to pin-point the Causes which can be treated with a remedy called YELP which provides material targets and forecasts to provide community, meaning, contentment and happiness.

Over the past ten years Australia has experienced a great neo-liberal experiment that has – through both luck and design – produced economic growth, more wealth (for some), low inflation and (leaving cooked figures aside) lower levels of unemployment. And yet, if the social chroniclers (like Hugh Mackay, Clive Hamilton and Richard Eckersley) are right, we have a population that remains in the emotional and spiritual doldrums. Anti depressants are doled out like boiled sweets and armies of counsellors, psychologists, psychiatrists and other ‘technicians of the soul’ are readily available to exorcise the human spirit. In the meantime we forget to talk with our partners, children, neighbours and strangers in the local supermarket.