The reasons go much deeper. The economy has to keep expanding because our entire economy is based on debt. Have you ever asked yourself “what is money” or “why is it worth anything” or what determines how much of something a dollar will buy? The answers to these questions will lead you to the answer to why our economy must keep expanding to avoid deflation (recession or depression). Once you understand it, you will be shocked and even more worried about our future than you are now.

I highly recommend reading “The Creature from Jekyll Island – A Second Look at the Federal Reserve”. In a nutshell, one of the major foundations of our entire economy is the fractional reserve banking system. The need for banks to keep on deposit only 10% of customers deposits results in a multiplication effect every time someone borrows money from a bank. This literally creates dollars out of nothing and is the cause of inflation. In order for people to make the loan payments on that debt more and more loans need to be made to keep putting money into circulation. If all of the loans are paid back, money goes out of circulation unless there are new borrowers to borrow it. Bottom line is, that people need to keep borrowing money from banks or the whole system collapses in a depresssion (severe deflation). If we ever get to a point where banks won’t loan or borrowers won’t borrow, the economy is toast – second great depression begins. The powers that be will do anthing (and have) to avoid this.

This is a very over-simplified explanation but it’s a start.