Mandel's passion, backed with his extensive and prestigious market study experience, gives me hope that more Americans just might begin to consider alternative methods to "Reset the American Retail Button". This is long overdue.
Mandel conlcudes:
If we want Americans to prosper, we need consumer spending to become less important to the economy, not more. In the end, we need a production economy, not a consumption economy.One thing for certain, Mandel makes me feel justified in my snarky rants on consumerism. Yes, it's fun showing photos of items my family needs acquired at eye-popping savings. It's also great my purchases divert items from landfills and have significant carbon footprint savings in not requiring newly-manufactured items to be packaged and shipped from the other side of this planet. And, it's poetic that my purchases deliver funds to help Americans in need of "re-purposing" their lives al a Goodwill Industries. One thing I know to be true, this population of people is growing; fast.
Just saw this in the current Harper's Index:
Percentage of Americans who say their household couldn't come up with $2,000 in thirty days: 47.While we transition from an economy of MORE to LESS, wonder what Michael Mandel would think about promoting more and more reuse in America?
Thank you Mr. Mandel. I'd like to hear more of you and less demands that "shopping is patriotic"! Funny how it's never defined exactly what country it's patriotic for. We assume the US, but Mandels points out this is not so.
Or, how about this sent in from a reader from The New York Times, "Shopping for Freedom" where then NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani declared, “Freedom to shop is one of the fundamental liberties terrorists want to deprive us of!” Really? Shopping is a fundamental liberty? So why wasn't the Mall of America targeted?
Okay, we have a need to acquire food, shelter, etc. Until a better system is in place I agree with Mandels and start looking for that precious Union Label. If you can't find it, get thee to the thrift store until manufacturing returns jobs to the American markets.
Posts
7 comments:
I am also disturbed by how much our economy relies on the building of new homes!
Alex,
I share your concern. Especially when these homes seem to be built with a planned obsolesce, are not energy efficient, are over-sized, have three car garages, and involve lengthy drives (read loads of fuel consumption) to any grocery store. There are wonderful options like the Tiny Home Movement and a resurgence in Bungalow life, alas these options are not the mainstream. Way out in the burbs there are huge bill board signs advertising homes "priced in the mid $300K's". I never thought I'd see homes en mass advertised on bill boards.
One might be led to think that homes are no longer places where parents raise their children and places where grandchildren eventually come to visit; a family's refuge from the world. Now it seems that homes are products.
My home? It's a member of my family and I care for it as such.
Oh, how I would love to see an anti-retail movement take hold! I am puzzled by peoples' obsessions with labels , for example, onpurses, where they won't buy a reproduction unless they are sure it is "real" despite the fact that they will readily admit they can't tell the difference except in minute features.
And everything now is designed to be either obsolete or just plain "out of style" in 2 years or so. Witness the horror when designers see a kitchen without granite counters - OMG, it's soooo dated! (I happen to still love my blue counters).
I could go on for hours, but I'll spare you....but keep up the good work, and Happy Thrifting everyone! If it's working, dammit, don't replace it! :)
(Writing from Toronto Canada whose economy, mercifully, has not taken nearly as serious a hit as the U.S).
YAAAAAY....YOU !
Giuliani's comments are a joke! I couldn't believe how after 911, a bunch of fashion designers got together and urged the American public to show our patriotism by shopping. Who are we kidding? Let's get real. They just wanted to line their pockets with more money. I couldn't believe they said it with a straight face!
As for the mcmansions, I saw a 60 Minutes story in which one owner said that people object to the building of mcmansions because they were "jealous." This only goes to show how arrogant and ignorant people are. No, we are not all jealous; we just care about our natural resources and what living in excess does to our world - environmentally, morally, socially!
Regarding the planned obsolescence of manufactured goods, this has been going on for decades, as discussed in great detail in the Vance Packard book, the "Waste Makers," first published in the 1950's. Packard was way before his time in exposing "the systematic attempt of business to make us wasteful, debt-ridden, permanently discontented individuals."
Yup, planned obsolescence is an invention born from consumerism not common sense living.
I get it. The construction industry is a heavy hitter on the jobs market and it's an a trade we really can't outsource to India. (Otherwise it'd be gone but it's kind of hard to get an electrician in India to rewire your home.)
Instead of building cookie cutter neighborhoods when there is already a mass surplus of foreclosure homes, how about we focus on our nations infrastructure? What ever happened to high speed rail? Or did airline, auto an oil lobbyists shut that one down?
I'll have to look online for the 60 Minutes piece your refer to Serena. "Jealously" wants to shut down the mass building of low quality 4,000' homes when an energy crisis is looming and the cost of gas ain't going down? Oh my!
Wow. I can't add a thing, so I'll just say "I'm with you - all of you." I plan to head to a thrift store this afternoon; my 19yo needs school clothes. Mall? Forget it.
Ditto...to all! I love your blog! I am now your new follower! Please come over and join us too...we'd love having you. Hugs! Loretta
Post a Comment