Consumerism--then and now

Government statistics drive me crazy. USDA and Federal Reserve (yes, I know the Fed isn't government) don't always line up. The information I look for is sometimes percent, sometimes rate of increase, or numbers, or Hispanics are whites in one table, but not in another, or it's divided by age group, etc. But as near as I can figure, the year my father entered the Marines in 1943, 41.2% of the family budget was for food. (It was 35.4% in 1939, which was still the Depression.) Imagine--and everyone who could had "victory gardens," sugar and coffee were rationed (we had little coupon books for each family member), every scrap of fat was saved, and no one was eating in restaurants. "Eating out" in my family was visiting grandma, or walking to Zickuhr's for a 5 cent ice cream cone. But in 2016 only 12.9% of a household budget for children and parents was for food, only slightly more of that was at home, than eating out. And I've seen figures much lower than that--can't find it now. USDA publishes food plans that run from Thrifty to Liberal. When I used to track costs (haven't for years) the Bruce Household was always below Thrifty, and eating out was going to Friendly's for breakfast on Sunday, $5.00 for the whole family.

2017 food plans, https://www.cnpp.usda.gov/sites/default/files/CostofFoodFeb2017.pdf

Between our sermons on affluenza at church and the myths, fairy tales and wishful thinking about federal taxes, I've been pondering the 1970s. I called us upper middle class because we had way too much "stuff" when others didn't have enough. One income, one SAHM, 2 small children; 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath home, slab on grade; 2 TVs one 1960 and one 1967; 1 phone attached to wall with a 50 ft cord so I could keep an eye on Phil; 1 1968 car bought used; no AC, no microwave, no computer, no VHS player (yes, some of our wealthy friends had those); no savings, no retirement, 1 week vacation, cash for doctors, and too much month left at the end of the money. Our gross income in 1972 was $17,211, well above the average of $11,419. I didn't work, but 37% of American women did. I'm not complaining by any means; we lived in a beautiful neighborhood and had great friends through our church and community activities. But our lifestyle in 1972 is considered poverty today. 

1972-73 Bureau of Labor statistics. https://www.bls.gov/opub/uscs/1972-73.pdf

I told my husband this when he came down for breakfast, and he listened quietly as his eyes become glassy, and then said what he always does, "I'm sure glad I married you instead of that other woman." That's sort of a standing joke when he gets a boatload of statistics with breakfast. But it's better than the Madalyn Murray O'Hare gruesome story he got on Saturday.

Why do Democrats talk about the gap instead of life style?

Facebook sent me a memo about what I wrote on November 1, 2014.

"This is why the Democrats have to talk about a gap rather than quality of life and consumption.

The typical poor household, AS DEFINED BY THE U.S. GOVERNMENT, has ...

• a car and air conditioning, two color televisions, cable or satellite TV, a DVD player, and a VCR.
• If there are children, especially boys, the family has a game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation.
• In the kitchen, the household has a refrigerator, an oven and stove, and a microwave.
• Other household conveniences include a clothes washer, clothes dryer, ceiling fans, a cordless phone, and a coffee maker.
• The home of the typical poor family is in good repair and is not overcrowded.
• The typical average poor American has more living space in his home than the average (non-poor) European has.
• By its own report, the typical poor family was not hungry, was able to obtain medical care when needed, and had sufficient funds during the past year to meet all essential needs."

The immigrants who come here probably know this; the media and politicians don't seem to.

Notice what is soaring?  College tuition and fees, not health care. Government is heavily involved in college loans.

The widening gap between the rich and the poor—10 easy reasons

Nine years ago the  Wall Street Journal published a series—the widening gap between the rich and the poor—and this was before the recession and during very low unemployment and an economic boom.  I didn’t like any of their answers, so I wrote my own reasons for the gap. Keep in mind this was May 2005. Notice the word “easy.”

1. Easy credit cards: We got our first credit card in the late 60s--I think it was a "Shopper’s Charge." We now have one department store credit card and one bank card--we’ve never carried a balance. Since the late 80s and into the 90s, many new households have never known what it was to live on their earned income.
2. Easy divorce: Christians now have the same divorce rate as anyone else in the culture. When we married 45 years ago, regular religious observance offered families some protection. No fault divorce particularly hurt women and children, pushing them economically into competition with two income families.
3. Easy sex: Casual one-night stands were glorified in the movies of the 70s and 80s. Although adultery and fornication had long been a theme in literature, drama and movies, casual sex and living together before marriage became the gold standard of relationships by the 80s, even though it’s been proven that it increases the divorce rate. Then easy sex came into the living rooms via TV so that even young children think who’s spending the night is no more important than what toothpaste mom buys. Women having and raising babies alone is the biggest cause of growing poverty.
4. Easy birth control and abortion: The millions of Americans that might have sprung from the loins of some of our best and brightest have been denied life itself, and thus their slots in the pie chart has been taken by poor, less educated immigrants. Obviously this creates a huge gap between the middle class and the poor, who instead of having a solid footing as those aborted citizens might have had, flood across our borders or arrive as refugees with nothing.
5. Easy technology and gadgets: Time wasted on I-pods and text messaging and vegging out in front of bad movies on DVDs has certainly absorbed billions of hours that could have been invested in networking, education or advancing up the career ladder. Cable and cell phone monthly costs easily equal what we spent on a mortgage in the 1960s and 1970s.
6. Easy bankruptcy: Load up the credit cards with consumer spending, mortgage your future, then make the rest of us pay it off for you. It might have been Plan B 20 years ago, but is now Plan A. Interest only mortgages, leases for larger and more expensive vehicles, second mortgages--for a generation who thinks the future will be paid for by someone else, it’s a recipe for a growing gap.
7. Easy leisure: Thirty five years ago (1970) few middle class families took vacations--if Dad had a week off (and most companies didn’t offer it) he spent it fixing the house. Sure it’s a huge industry and employs a lot of people, but we’re looking at the gap aren’t we? We’d probably been married 10 years before we took a family vacation (my parents never had one), and then it was at my mother’s farm for a week. Our daughter and her husband had been to Key West, Aruba and took a Mexican cruise in the first 5 years of their marriage.
8. Easy entertainment: This is related to leisure and technology, but today’s young families have difficulty being alone or quiet, it would seem. Even 30 years olds seem unable to walk around without head phones. They are spending their children’s future at movies, sporting events and theme parks. A visit to the library is most likely to pick up a movie, not a book.
9. Easy college loans: Instead of attending a state school, working during the summer or attending closer to home, many young people begin their working lives with huge debt, a debt that takes years to pay off, assuming they don’t default. Loans were so easy in the 80s, that parents who could well afford to pay tuition had their children at the public trough.
10. Easy shopping: You can be a couch potato or a computer novice and never leave home to shop. Addiction is easy. Just call in with the credit card.

See? And I haven’t even said a word about how much health care costs, or how the women’s movement changed our culture, public transportation or taxes. And while the government is tangentially involved in these areas, mostly it boils down to perfectly legal choices, choices which when they become ingrained in our way of life lead to poverty or slippage down by a quintile for the next generation.

Today’s new word/phrase is CONSUMER-DRIVEN

You probably think you know what this means, however, when you find the phrase--usually in health care, technology or food articles--and analyze the sentence or paragraph, you’ll see it is used to mean exactly the opposite of what you thought.* In my opinion, it really means market and/or advertisement driven, or interest group driven, not consumer (you and me) driven. We've all laughed when told all that scummy stuff on TV is what "the people" want. Total nonsense, isn't it? They call that "consumer driven" programming. It's a soft word for "choice," except, usually the consumer hasn't made a free choice, it's been foisted on her. Someone interviewed 50 teen-agers with credit cards in the small brained crowd and found a match for their value system, then sold it to an investor. We've got a "consumer-driven," multi-use, multi-story condo monstrosity down the road from here that some city planner with the heart of a social worker sold our city fathers. So far, they haven't found enough people with $750,000 who want a condo overlooking the parking lot of Kingsdale Shopping Center.

I came across this phrase again yesterday reading a jargon filled paragraph lauding the achievements of an OSU professor who'd completed "the Food Systems Leadership Institute program." Wondering what a food system was and why someone needed to be its leader, I looked up FSLI. I found more mush words about boundaries, challenges, emerging issues, stakeholders and change agents that explained nothing--those are the same buzz words that librarians, health care workers, architects, and auto suppliers get in their workshops and conferences. But I did see the publication “Land Grant colleges' response to the changing Food System” (corrected version, Jan. 2008) had a focus on drivers and actors. A major theme was the "food system should be consumer-driven," and able to change as quickly as the environment it operates in. From there it really bogged down. See if it makes sense to you.

Today I saw an article in the paper on retirement. Seniors are choosing to stay longer in their own homes, thus hurting the retirement/nursing home industry. Now that is something I'd call "consumer-driven." The consumer has no money, the investments are gone, so they can't pay the entry fee. One night on our way home from our date spot, I noticed the parking lot at Panera's was jammed. I'd say that is "consumer-driven." The formerly two income family now has one, but still wants to eat out on the week-end, so they are choosing a less expensive venue. The consumer, not the ad agencies, are deciding.

But just about everything else you see called "consumer-driven" means the advertisers and marketers, bureaucrats and academics thought it up, and that includes all the hype about organic food, nutrition and exercise, and the "choices" in your insurance plan.

*google this phrase and see if you don't agree

The white guilt that will elect Obama

It's not about 18-19th century slavery and reparations; we've killed more Africans just by taking DDT off the market than were lost in the transatlantic slave trade. It's not about the Civil Rights movement--the Gen-X and Gen-Y kids (who don't turn out in huge numbers to vote) just blow off those required February Black History Month units. It's not even about failed programs floated by liberal boomers in the inner cities since the 1960s.

No, mainstream Americans don't even perceive Obama as black, except maybe as a poster child or a symbol. Obama is light skinned, grew up with white relatives and friends in white neighborhoods, talks and walks white, has an Ivy League education, and doesn't grab his crotch when performing. He's the anti-hip hopper. He's the anti-Jesse and Al. He's 100% acceptable and sanitized for the white, middle class voter.

But we in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th quintiles do have a lot of guilt--about having so much. Even our poor have a lot. I worked at the food pantry this week--I can't tell you the number of cell phone ring tones, i-pods, and Bluetooth contraptions strapped to ears I saw among the people waiting for 3 days of food. The artificial nails and hair extensions. Of the 70+ clients we served (end of the month), only 2 or 3 people were on foot--one guy was on a bike. And 3 days of food in 2008 has to be five times more food than we gave in the early 80s when I first started to work there. We were passing out as many bananas as they could eat, bags and bags of fresh lettuce mixes (costs about $3 a bag where I shop), low fat yogurt packs, as much bread as they could carry, and 10 lb. sacks of potatoes. Almost no one would accept rice, beans, peanut butter or applesauce--said they had plenty of that. The first 10-12 families even got large Harry and David gift boxes loaded with fruit, cheese and chocolates.

No, it's the theme of hope and change that appeals to our over-consuming voters--whites and blacks, Republicans and Democrats, young and old (but probably mostly the young who have grown up with the abundance we older Americans thought would solve problems). It doesn't hurt that Obama is young and handsome, because we overweight, pre-diabetic Americans are hooked on slender good looks. Hillary is chunky, McCain is overweight.

We have a serious spiritual problem in the USA--even the purpose driven Rick Warren who came to power, wealth and renown preaching the cross of Jesus Christ has abandoned us for greener pastures in Africa and Asia. American religious leaders don't know what to do with an overfed, over-leisured, over-educated parish. So they focus on gaps in wealth, health care and schools, but not the one between God and man. And pardon my language, but God forbid they should preach from the Bible what is really meant in those passages about wealth! But the people know. Yes. Deep down. They know there must be something more. And if a Messiah comes along who says all the right biblical phrases, hey, they'll follow. I just hope he knows that Good Friday follows the adoration and singing of Palm Sunday. Because if he can't deliver. . . things will get nasty.

Oddies, Endies, and Undies

Yesterday I noted that my husband squeaked through on registration to tour the new Dublin Methodist Hospital to get 3 credit hours in health, safety and welfare for his continuing education requirements. At supper last night (homemade pizza) he couldn't stop raving about the design, creativity and planned well-being for patients. So it is definitely a winner, all around. You folks who live in Dublin and surrounding areas are going to have one super community hospital.


As I was settling in for a nap (one of my favorite events of the day) about 2 p.m. I heard a loud crash. I was a bit groggy, but realized the roof was not above me--the master bedroom is there. So I walked upstairs carefully, thinking perhaps a mirror or painting had fallen. When I got to the master bath, I saw that all the marble trim tile had fallen off the edge of the vanity. If anyone had been standing there in bare feet, he would have had a broken toe. I walked downstairs and told my husband (he uses that bathroom), and he said he wasn't surprised, that it was noted in the inspection in 2001 when we bought the condo, but hadn't been fixed.

So I settled in again for my nap. The phone rang and my husband picked it up from the kitchen. I opened an eye and looked at the TV screen. A name and phone number appeared. The conversation was with the buyer of one of the condos that has been for sale for a year. My husband is president of the association, and this purchase has involved many meetings of the board. When he hung up he said the purchase was final. I asked the buyer's name, but he couldn't remember. Was it--and I mentioned the name that had appeared on our TV screen, and he said Yes. Now that's weird. We assume it is something in her phone, because to our knowledge, this has never happened before. Has this ever happened to you?

A nap was definitely out of the question after two interruptions, so I decided to go Christmas shopping. I had four cards from Macy's. Two for $15 off a $50 purchase, and two for $25 off a $100 purchase. The problem was Macy's was also having a one day sale--something like "take another 20% off the already 50% markdown." I'm math challenged. So when I got my carefully totalled gifts (in my head) to the head of the check out line (waited 10 minutes), they only came to $82. So I'm refiguring what we'd agreed on, and go back and pick up an item that was $18 (although the $9 would have done just as well). See, that's how they trap you. In my head, I'm deducting the $25 off my son's gift, so it evens out with my daughter's and son-in-law's, but the receipt shaves each item--and actually totals $26 and not $25. I'll stick with my head on this.

I still have two cards left, so I browse the ladies lingerie department--not for a gift, but for me. My favorite brand of undies (which always seems to be on sale) has a buy 3 get one free (ca. $18), although because of the sale, I have no idea what it will be when I get to the register. So I go down stairs and look at shoes to see if there's something in 8.5 AA, and I select 2 Naturalizers and take them to the desk (no one comes to you these days). You would have thought I'd asked for the moon. "We have no narrow sizes in any style," she sniffed (She was quite large, and I think that's why narrow sizes are disappearing). You see, I thought if I bought a pair of shoes I didn't really need, I'd get the panties I didn't really need almost for "free." Saved from consumer hell by a shoe width.

What would Jesus buy?

This film just might save you from making huge mistakes this Christmas. It tells the story of anti-consumerism preacher Reverend Billy. Along with his Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir he goes on a cross-country mission to save Christmas from the Shopocalypse. I saw the trailer--actually saw the words "Merry Christmas" at a store--although it may have been a movie set. I don't think it's in Columbus yet.

I looked through a few blogs, and saw the usual anti-business, anti-capitalism comments from readers and wondered if the person writing had thought about where she was in the food chain of consumerism. Distribution of the product? Marketing? Salesclerk? Gas station attendant gasing up the SUV? Restaurant worker serving shoppers? Construction worker building the mall? Sanitation worker hauling the trash? Musician selling the iTunes? Farmer raising the turkeys and pumpkins? Baker making the pies and cookies? Think about it. Where do you want the consumerism to stop and how much 'til you can't pay the rent?