VERY few things happen in isolation in today’s world of globalising business and commerce.

Rising cost of living throughout PNG is not just the price we pay for bad go­vernance but the net effects of a world gone crazy.

There is hyperinflation in the months ahead. The evidence is everywhere.

The United States is recklessly printing money while many of Europe’s economies are facing massive sovereign debts that threaten to bring not just those economies but the rest of Europe down with them. Greece, Portugal, Ireland and possibly Spain are now economies facing unsustainable debt burdens.

And we thought debt of that sort was the exclusive preserve of least developed nations.
Real estate markets conti­nue to be overpriced, both here and abroad, as if nobody has ever learnt from the pro­perty credit bubble burst of 2008 which triggered worldwide recession.

The United States is simply printing more money to stay afloat but it has a huge debt that Congress and the president have not come to terms with and it will become the issue that will decide the next presidency.

World stock markets have moved from being pendulums swinging ever so gently in response to market conditions to pistons in engines plunging widely up and down with the accelerator pushed to the floor and on remote control.

Gold, one of the heaviest metals on the planet, seems to have shrugged itself free of the laws and power of gra­vity – at least where its value is concerned and all other commodities, which seemed for a while to follow suit, are feeling gravity all of a sudden. There is no telling when they might be floating towards the stratosphere again.

Many watchers of world economic affairs predict a time in the not-too-distant future when there might be massive economic devastation, foreclosures, social and political upheaval and widespread unemployment.

Should the government in PNG do what other economies are doing around the world and respond to rising cost of living by price hikes on imported foods and food subsidies, wage increases and spending increases in an effort to help the poor maintain their buying power?

We suggest not. We suggest we go back to our roots and learn from the villager.
In the end, if the world economic order comes tumbling down, the poor outback Pa­pua New Guinean who, to­­day, is in so much mental anguish as a result of false promises, will not be any worse off.

He will have his food in the garden, his firewood stored away, his pigs squealing outside the fence, the chicken foraging for food in the yard, free toilet, shower and water, the house he has built and has always lived in, the wife and children for comfort and companionship and his tribesmen for security. All of this at no cost in cash terms.
He has no need of anybody today except, perhaps, the modern convenience of a torch or lamp, clothes, soap and salt.

Where the world’s socio-economic systems and processes, as we know it, were to collapse, only the man who depends on his own efforts in the village will be truly immune from the impact.

The villager is the truly self-reliant man.

Papua New Guinea today needs to emulate the independence of the simple villager. There is much this country does not need to learn from the modern world and one of them is self-sufficiency, which was there before the first explorer set foot in PNG.
Nobody in the villages is starving unless there is a famine or natural disaster. He has far better food grown organically and prepared without fats and cholesterol enrichments which are killing people all over the world, including PNG.

So, 95% of PNG does not lack the basic need of food.

You really do not need clothes in a country where the less clothing you wear, the better. Climate change will ensure this becomes standard clothing policy far into the future. This so-called basic need is unnecessary.

Every villager has his own home so he really does not need to build one bigger and better and costlier.

What is really needed is basic health care and hygiene for the villager so that he prepares his food in hygienic conditions and looks after himself well. Even his home needs only a few adjustments, not roofing iron, nails and timber.

Some simple changes within our means which caters for the majority of our people is what is needed rather than the grandiose dreams we have given our people of emulating Australians or anybody else around the world.

Papua New Guineans will roar ahead and stay ahead if more decisions were made that are closer to home and, therefore, more affordable and more achievable.

Only a PNG that is prepared in this manner will remain standing when the fortune cookies of today’s world come crumbling.

Editorial, The National, 17 August 2011