Josh Marshall links to a piece by Fareed Zakaria which begins this way:
Some of us--especially those under 60--have always wondered what it would be like to live through the kind of epochal event one reads about in books. Well, this is it. We're now living history, suffering one of the greatest financial panics of all time.
I'm under 60 and I don't understand the age reference. What happened during the ten years between 1948 and 1958 (for example) that's more historic than the Cuban missile crisis, the Vietnam war, the 1968 uprisings, the fall of the Soviet Empire, the invention of the Internet, or our first forays into space - just to name a few events?
On the other hand, I fully understand these comments :
This crisis has--dramatically, vengefully--forced the United States to confront the bad habits it has developed over the past few decades. If we can kick those habits, today's pain will translate into gains in the long run. Since the 1980s, Americans have consumed more than they produced--and they have made up the difference by borrowing.
I agree ... basically. Where I differ is when he goes on to castigate consumers - us - for their (our) inherent greed and superficiality. Zakaria writes: "If we wanted a bigger house, a better TV or a faster car, and we didn't actually have the money to pay for it, no problem. We put it on a credit card, took out a massive mortgage and financed our fantasies."
I think the blame lies elsewhere: in the media, in our political leadership, and in the culture itself.
Those things didn't happen in a vacuum, nor were they as premeditated as that kind of language suggests. Americans didn't wake up one morning and decide to be fiscally irresponsible. They were actively encouraged to do it. What's more, they were told that this kind of consumption wasn't irresponsible at all. Many of the people entrusted with keeping them informed - journalists, politicians, and other persuaders - told them instead that they were merely fortunate. They were led to believe they lived in a time of endlessly expanding personal net worth, fueled by a long-term and open-ended boom in real estate values.
Don't blame me, said the American consumer. Like the Dylan song says: "I can't help it if I'm lucky." And society's leaders nodded their heads in agreement as they hummed along.
Now it seems as if everybody's lecturing the same beleaguered consumer. Maybe I'm being a little too harsh on Mr. Zakaria as a result. But where were the major-media voices telling people not to buy houses or take out loans? Where were the 'trusted names in news' telling people that we were an overly materialistic, consumer-oriented culture? Sure, scattered words of concern were heard here and there. But nobody sounded a clear warning bell for the huddled masses.
Fareed Zakaria writes for Newsweek and has his own CNN show. The voices that were condemning our borrow-and-spend consumer culture weren't particularly welcome at places like CNN or Newsweek while all this was happening. There were no major-media gigs for Paul Hawken or Bill McKibben.
The root problem runs deeper than excessive personal debt. The problem lies in a value system that measures our human worth according to our net worth. The "fantasies" Mr. Zakaria describes didn't appear unbidden from the unbridled core of the American Id. They were put there - by advertisers, business leaders, pop stars, moviemakers, and the features editors in a hundred thousand news outlets.
As a result, we care too much about our houses, our cars, our entertainment systems, and our clothes. But it's uncomfortable to hear those things, or even to say them. It's too cliched, too hippieish, too filled with dewdrops and idealism. Yet we're now able to quantify the results of the Culture of Consumption in clear, economic terms. Yes, there were some Cassandras and a Paul Revere or two. But they weren't getting much airtime. The sponsors might not have liked it.
Nobody was crying "small is beautiful" from the steps of the Treasury building or in the halls of Congress, either. Our government leaders were too busy encouraging all this borrowing and spending. The outgoing President famously told Americans to "shop" in response to 9/11. And his predecessor hired Robert Rubin, one of the architects of this collapsing economy. Where were the political leaders of either party who suggested we dial down on all the consumption, or warning us that trouble was on the way?
Fareed Zakaria is right to suggest that there may be a silver lining to this crisis. But I think he's wrong to adopt the currently-popular condemnatory tone against consuming Americans. They were only doing what they were told, after all. They were reflecting the values transmitted to them 24/7 by politicians, entertainers, advertisers, and ... yes ... pundits.
We need to re-think our assumptions on a variety of levels, starting with the economic, the cultural, and the personal. We won't get that done by being judgmental. We'll do it by educating people. And by educating ourselves. The values of the past are inadequate to face the challenges of the future.
"He who dies with the most toys wins." Remember that bumper sticker? A lot of people looked down on it. But they reflected it, too, in their culturally programmed yearning for whatever gave them the best buzz -- whether it was a bigger TV, a few more vintage guitars, or the ecstatic rush brought on by new-car smell.
A lot of people fell for that greed buzz sometimes, including many who consider themselves rational and not particularly materialistic. I know I did. Maybe you did, too. It's in our collective DNA -- and now we need gene therapy. We need to evolve from a consumer society to a rational resource society.
If that happens, then we under-60's really will have lived through an epochal event. Maybe the biggest in our history, come to think of it: the end of the Age of Consumption and the birth of a humane and sustainable society. That would be an event to remember.
RJ Eskow blogs when he can at Night Light and The Sentinel Effect: Healthcare Blog
Follow RJ Eskow on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rjeskow
Wait! That's it! We didn't shop enough and brought down the whole economy!
"The problem lies in a value system that measures our human worth according to our net worth," and "We need to evolve from a consumer society to a rational resource society."
And I especially appreciated the non-judgmental tone of your piece.
The older I get, the more I realize that sometimes the first step in any really productive behavior change is to be able to fogive myself for having done it, and simply acknowledge that I did the best I knew how to do at the time. This is not to imply "Oh well, and on my merry way." Rather, the freedom to forgive gives me the freedom to confront the truth - I did something about which I'm a little ashamed and genuinely sorry.
And I remember the precise moment when my relationship with my "stuff" changed. I read a piece in which the author wrote that the Navajo have 47 different synonyms for the verb "to love," not one of which takes an inanimate object as its object. So the Navajo love people, nature, animals & experiences. Now I look at every "toy" or piece of clothing from the perspective of "how much do I enjoy the experience I have with it?" I humbly suggest this as a way to begin to cut through the "glamor" sell to what really does serve us well and make us genuinely happy?
Consumerism has been sold to us, but we, individually, have bought into it.
The little man is regulated and monitored down to pennies. The BIG man is free of regulation, responsibility, accountability and of course blame - but not reward.
What I want to know is why there haven't been people taking to the streets with picket signs and loudspeakers instead of trying to run on the hamster wheel faster and faster. The average American has not been given the health care, vacation time, family leave time, wage increases, job security, or anything else that should have been a benefit during the "boom" years. So now that the boom has bust, don't expect us to either spend or save in such a way as to keep the sinking ship afloat. It's time to follow the money. Where did it go? I can assure you nothing trickled down my way and I'll bet a lot of you reading this didn't get much of the green stuff trickling down your way, either.
I know there is a huge national debt. But the average American consumer didn't spend the money which created it. No one ever asks me before the national budget is set; do they ever ask you?
Of course the consumer is blamed for their own health problems as well (not enough exercise) and for not working hard enough (longest workday in the world...no time for exercise) and for not having one parent eschew work and stay home with the kids (see housing, food, energy, health and education prices in recent years), for not making enough home-cooked meals (see longest workday in the world), for not being informed voters (information gathering takes TIME) for having too much "road rage" on the streets (they are all rushing to get home to do all of these things in the 2 hours they have to do them in) and even for not getting enough sleep.
I know how very much many retailers depend on holiday season shopping to keep their enterprises afloat, and so I feel badly for them when I hear about so many people who are just not giving gifts this year. I would not have joined their number if we hadn't been one of the layoff victims, but we were, and so we are going to have to play Scrooge as well.
With the banks threatening to increase credit card interest rates (already so far away from the prime rate as to be usury) to help them recover from their bad real estate investments, who is going to want to do Christmas on the cards? Everyone I know is trying to pay off their debts, except for things like emergency home or car repairs and emergency medical.
What investors seem to forget about housing is that it is a necessity. But treating it as a commodity for investment had the bizarre consequence of housing in many areas going up in price beyond the reasonable reach of the salaries of the people who were supposed to be living in it. So naturally people started to take risky loans that were offered to them. They had to live somewhere. Those of us who rent get no mortgage tax deduction, do not build equity, have to answer to landlords in ways which reduce personal privacy, and there isn't enough rental housing to have everyone who couldn't really afford a $500,000 overpriced tract house to rent. I laugh at these analysts who say people "bought more house than they could afford." I don't see too many 1 bedroom houses on the market. The homes were *overpriced*. If they had been a luxury good their sales would have plummeted but for food/clothing/shelter/survival people are prepared to take risks if they have to.
We could have ended up with 3 families sharing 3-bed 2-baths, but we are not used to that standard of living (yet). When the Masters of the Universe created their exotic financial products that multiplied economic effects, somehow it slipped their mind that what goes up does come down, especially prices of things like homes which are to be bought by people who are not receiving wage increases. Oops.
Many of the stores I used to shop at are having going out of business desperation sales: Mervyn's, Linens 'n Things, Circuit City, the local Bed, Bath & Beyond. There is going to be company in the unemployment line.
So Americans needed to spend more AND save more. But--wages were flatlined.
I personally believe that as the massive "stealth transfer" of wealth continued unabated to a small number of super-rich (see http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12699486/paul_krugman_on_the_great_wealth_transfer/print for one article on the subject), the goose that laid the golden eggs, the American consumer, was slowly squeezed into a place where even credit cards couldn't make ends meet.
Oh , for the religiously inclined, to return to lessons of the Bible and the rest of us to return to the days of yesteryear, when charging more than 10% was considered usery. I do believe that this is one area, where the religious, the agnostic, and the atheist could all agree. Like Dickens, "Great Expectations, " we American characters have found that this benefactor ( the credit card) is not the savior that we thought it would be!
When I ask people what is the biggest item in their "borrowed" budget it is usually housing, education, or medical costs.
I believe one particular White House shrub should have been trimmed 5 years ago because I don't think we would be facing this current situation if ANYONE else had
Also, by the way, the reason why government tuition assistance never catches up with actual tuition, because colleges still charge what people are willing and can afford to pay out of their own pocket on top of the assistance. If all assistance were to disappear tomorrow and every family lost one of their two incomes .. then next year the colleges would all somehow still be completely filled with students.
Remember, money is not real .. it is only paper spit out by a copy machine. It is only worth what we believe it is worth.
not on gadgets or cars or trips. I used them to pay medical
bills. And now I have my own financial crisis.
But I'm not collecting a million dollar bonus at my job, while
getting all my bills paid off.
Want to give me my part of the bailout? I'll gladly help the
economy.