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Monday, November 8, 2010
News Consumer activity downright idiotic
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Mon, Nov 8, 2010 at 3:32 PM
According to economists, the Great Recession is over and has been for a while. Now they're stalking shoppers through giant malls, monitoring consumers in their natural habitat.
Will they buy crap they don't need? Will they jack up their credit cards? Do the giant "sale" signs change their behavior? What if the store offers a credit card?
It's clear, from the stalkers first reports, that spending behavior has changed in our society, but is this a temporary change, or have we finally learned money can't buy happiness and cash is best? And, why do they care anyway?
They care because American consumers make up a huge part of the global economy. Wait. Huge isn't a big enough word. Let's go with massive: American consumers make up a massive part of the global economy. When we're not spending money, the economy slumps. That's why politicians are always encouraging us to go buy something. But, the economy abhors a vacuum and will adjust, if we let it.
But, wait: What were we spending when things were good? Well, we weren't spending cash. Uh uh. We were buying on time, and all of those creditors are now nipping at our asses, aren't they? So, we're beginning to rethink our materialistic pursuits ... kinda.
Here's a snippet from Yahoo! News and the Associated Press:
Layaway, once the province of the poor, has gone mainstream. At the Mall of America in Minnesota, shoppers dart in for just one or two things. In New York, socialites do the unthinkable: They wear the same ball gown twice.During the Great Recession, people made drastic changes in how they spent their money. They stopped treating credit cards as cash. They learned to save and learned to wait.
Now the recession is over, at least technically, and the economy is growing again, at least a little. But many changes in spending habits that most Americans first saw as temporary have taken hold, perhaps for good, some economists say.
This is the reality of the new American consumer — focused, cautious and tactical.
Read the rest of this article, by Rachel Beck and Anne D'innocenzio, here.
But! But! Another report indicates it's not that we're not spending money, it's that we're spending it differently ... like on SUVs, trucks and vans, you know — the expensive gas guzzlers that ruin our air and entrench our oil addiction.
And, this is when this writer bangs her head on her desk. SUVs? Are you fucking kidding me?
The average price of a gallon of gas has fallen to under $2 nationwide, and Americans are starting to change their vehicle buying habits again.Jalopnik reports that, in October sales figures, "The Ford F-150 and Chevy Silverado overtook the Toyota Camry and Corolla" to become the two fastest-selling vehicles in America.
Just last week, we saw the term "SUVs" surge back into the list of the ten most searched items on our site, with three models - the Ford Edge, Nissan Rogue and Buick Enclave, breaking into the list as well.
Read the rest of this U.S. World Reports article here.
So, economists and the media are all, "Huh? What?"
Why's that? Because buying brand-new SUVs is, like, one of the most idiotic things you could do right now, given the big picture and all. It's proof fucking positive that Americans have short attention spans, short memories and are much more concerned with what they have than with, oh say, saving money for their children's college educations ... because we're idiots like that, perpetuating idiocy and consumerism like rabbits pumping out babies.
Wake up, America. Get you head out of your ego and pay attention. You've got to stop blaming everyone else for your issues and look at your own finances, read your own financial documents and realize that you are voting with your money.
No wonder the view of "average Americans" around the world is that we're idiots:
Rhiannon "Rhi" Bowman is an independent journalist who contributes snarky commentary on Creative Loafing's CLog blog four days a week in addition to writing for several other local media organizations. To learn more, click the links or follow Rhi on Twitter.
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