by Troy Norris

Created on: April 18, 2009

While the current economic turmoil, brought on by loose credit, the propensity for the American Consumer to buy things they technically can't afford, and criminal rationalizations of untenable financing structures by what are supposed to be our most conservative institutions, might not spell the end of our consumeristic society, it appears to already be tempering it significantly. Purchases of large, new cars and homes, longfocal points of the consumeristic mindset, have slipped to the point of toppling home builders and automakers into oblivion. Luxury items in general, which out performed almost every other sector since 2002, have seen significant decline. And the only companies that appear to be doing well right now are McDonald's and WalMart. If that doesn't indicate that our country's "spend it if you've got it" lifestyle is on hiatus, I'm not sure what does.

For parallels into how prolonged retractions of consumer confidence and economic vitality can shape the behavior and mentality of people in this country, we only need to look back to the generation that followed the Great Depression. My own Grandfather was born in 1938, with financial malaise and overbearing practicality already well ingrained in people's lives. While he would have every opportunity to succumb to excess after achieving modest monetary success with the construction business he started, the lessons of his upbringing never allowed it. After selling his company and settling into retirement, he spent the remainder of his life fixing vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers, and grills salvaged from the curbside refuse of people he considered imbecilic for throwing away what he saw to be free money. On his hospital before heart bypass surgery, he divulged the hiding places around his house and yard where he kept his life savings. My mother recounted in awe as we collected it all together that she couldn't believe the irony in growing up in a no frills home scrapping for every penny, when there were literally thousands of dollars stuffed into the walls.

Myself, having been raised under a much different prevailing sentiment, never understood his justification for behavior that I considered ungenerous and backward. I even had to begrudgingly agree with my father when he lambasted him as a tight wad. But now, given all that has happened, a healthy distrust of financial institutions, only spending what you have and as little of that as possible, and seeing the value of maintaining what you own, seem perfectly reasonable. Pragmatism may not have completely replaced consumerism just yet, but the door is open for an old approach to reassert itself tailored to more modern sensibilities.

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