Letter to the Bank #70 (Who Consumes the Consumer?)

Dear Mr. Banker,

Who consumes the consumer? I don't enjoy being called a consumer. We are all consumers on some level. THE consumer, the biggest consumer of all is you. You are consuming us little consumers at a massive rate. What will you do when all the plankton has gone? You are way too lazy to create wealth so once you have consumed all the wealth that is already available what will you do then? Do big banks only fail when there is nothing more to suck on?

Just a quick note. Had the thought. Wrote it down. Sent it to you. Doubt you'll give it the time of day. Oh well.


Sincerely, 

the flea in your ear

Bubble Watch

Here begins an informal survey of the economic bubbles that have occurred, will occur, might occur, and the predictions prescient or not concerning such.

Nobody yet is talking about the credit offers that were made so easily to so many young people (who had yet to develop credit profiles) as soon as they were of age. I wonder how many of them see such credit as a birth right and continue to spend up their credit cards for all the things they need even as the system barks in alarm? I work in a part of the city where consumers continue consuming like there is no tomorrow. Are young credit cards a potential bubble?

Bubbles are no joke. If any of you have ever watched The Prisoner you know what I mean.

In Cheap We Trust and Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture

The paradox of thrift? Surely the paradox lies in being encouraged to spend what we do not have, virtual, abstract, not quite believable, real, or tangible money, assets, or coinage—coinage you cannot feel...

Two recent publications have caught my much cauliflowered ear and soothed them somewhat their rational takes on consumerism acting like balm to an auditory system much battered by insane economic advice, and irrational forecasts that see us all rising up out of the ashes of a recession that was never publicly defined as a depression and puffing hard to inflate another lie of a bubble, or two, or three. I’ve heard the authors talking on NPR and WNYC and was overjoyed to hear their clear and succinct telling of the true stories behind the outlet malls, super malls, buying American, bargain hunting, free offers, and how we all continually are being encouraged to spend and rack up further debt:


In Cheap We Trust Lauren Weber examines the cultural history of thriftiness

and in Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture, Ellen Ruppel Shell traces “our national obsession with the bargain from the Industrial Revolution to the modern assembly line, and from chain stores to big-box retailers who value convenience and low-prices over quality”. (WNYC web page). Click on Author names to see their interviews with Leonard Lopate on WNYC