Until yesterday morning I was blissfully unaware of this Gerald Celente guy. I tripped over him like a rock in the undertow when surfing the web for information about the B&N Nook Reader. People were quoting him, saying the recession was far from over, that there is going to mass panic, rioting in the streets, looting, killing, a tax revolution, and so forth. He apparently has some sort of track record, having predicted the economic downturn of 2008 before it happened. He claims to read a lot of news and remember a lot of history, so his predictions have a special sheen of legitimacy. Especially among those who love to sell fear–namely the news outlets.
Selling fear has become a specialty of the modern press. It’s one of the reasons I blame the current news system for turning their viewers off. And as a turned-off viewer it’s one of the reasons I hadn’t ever sat through one of Celente’s talking head pieces.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the state of America and the world economy. And after watching 10 minutes of Celente on something called Russia Today (via YouTube) it got me to thinking even more. Suppose he is right. After all, we saw massive drops in spending last Christmas. High-end stores are being shut down. People are changing their spending habits. Perhaps it IS true that America will be an undeveloped country in 2012.
But then I got to thinking even more. I actually know a lot of folks who have predicted the coming financial crisis. Many of them read this blog. But the thing is, none of us live in New York or Los Angeles. And from what I can see, the crisis is worse there because the correction was more needed. And I think when Celente makes his predictions he’s doing so as a New Yorker.
There are a lot of TV shows I could use as an example here, so I don’t mean to fault one program entirely, but I did watch Sex and the City and get really irritated. It appears that there is one part of America where people eat at restaurants all of the time, buy pairs of shoes that costs hundreds or even thousands of dollars and give diamonds as STOCKING STUFFERS at Christmas. There is a part of America where you buy what you feel like and worry about paying for it in some far distant future when you are surely to have struck gold. And maybe it’s good that part of America is having its sails trimmed a bit.
Because folks like me, like dozens of my friends, we’re the ones who are saving America, who are going to reshape America. Folks like us who don’t live beyond our means, who eat meals at home and buy their clothes at Target. Folks who wait for the video because even buying the video is cheaper than two tickets to the movies and you can make your own popcorn.
I think Celente lives in New York and doesn’t realise that folks like me exist. I think he thinks that everyone is buying everything on credit.
What do I think will halt the “coming riots” of Celente’s nightmare universe? The same things that have propelled society forward for thousands of years. Love and innovation. All of these doomsayers forget those two things. They see only a world motivated by money, a world where new things never happen. They cry doom because the oil is running dry, the money is running dry. They don’t dare to see that people love their families and will strive to provide no matter what. They don’t see that there are people who are investing themselves in making better things, in being better people.
Not everyone is shopping and having martinis. And it’s the rest of us grownups who are going to keep this world afloat.
Well … I’ve never heard of this guy, and hold no brief for him. But I have spent decades of my life in NYC. And Sex and the City was a fantasy. Even Friends was a fantasy, come to that. Real NYC residents with the kinds of jobs the characters in those shows have live in studio apartments, or have so many roommates they need to put up loft beds to have space for a desk and an easy chair, or live in the Bronx or Queens and spend a lot of time on the subways and express buses getting home. They don’t cook all that much (too many people, not much kitchen space) but they do eat a lot of Chinese takeout at $5 a meal. They like chic clothes, but are likely to buy them off a sidewalk pushcart. Sure, some folks max out their credit cards and buy fancy shoes, but not in greater proportion than in the rest of the country (where the mean household credit card debt is an appalling $10,000). And that, let me remind you, applies to people with the sorts of jobs shown on two TV shows. What about the millions of NYC residents who are secretaries, electricians, dry cleaners, fast food cooks, sales clerks, whatever? Is that salt of the earth enough for you?
I mean, I’ve seen Bill Frist’s house, and the prices on clothing in some of the fancier malls around Nashville. But I don’t use Nashville as a metaphor for unproductive conspicuous consumption, waste, and elitism. I don’t see why NYC, probably the scrappiest and most creative city in this country, needs to be used that way either.
Fair enough. And right enough fir calling me on not expanding my thesis better. I think that there IS a segment of society that is out of touch. I’ve come to think of that segment as mostly being in NYC and LA and SFO not bcz of politics but bcz of the culture they thrive on. And while I know tv shows are fantasy I think a lot of people don’t entirely disentangle themselves from the fantastic aspects.
I need to come up with another way to differentiate the debt culture from the non debt culture.
I also don’t think all debt is bad. I guess I mean conspicuous consumption or compulsive consumption. I clearly need to think on this some more.
I guess I don’t see the disconnect between the wasteful, unproductive, out-of-touch conspicuous consumers (which I take to be the group you are complaining about) to be greater in NYC than it is here in Nashville. The consumable culture of that group is different in the two cities (in Nashville, it’s more proud of being genteel, and it lags a bit in terms of adopting some visual manifestations of trendiness; in NYC, it’s more proud of being edgy, and far more dedicated to dropping cultural trends that have been picked up by other groups), but they do share an economic carelessness and a blinkered view of the world.
I just think that pointing at the coasts as a byword for profligacy is just a step away from saying that “only we real Americans in the heartland have good/family/American values” which I am heartily sick of. I know that you don’t think that way, but I hear it a bit too much out here.
As I think on this some more, I think my problem is that I’m at home now. The only wasteful, unproductive, out-of-touch conspicuous consumers I come into any kind of contact with on a regular basis are on TV. Although as I think back on my 18 years in Nashville and my 19 years in Indiana I can name plenty of examples of same that I went to school or had a job with. The people who thought nothing of buying an expensive coffee every morning and letting half of it go bad while I ate meals for the whole day that cost less than that one coffee.
It’s a hard issue to think through rationally because there’s the fear factor, the envy factor, the frustration factor, etc.
And with me there’s the anger factor. Because even when things were rough financially we always did okay as a family. We had love and laughter and played board games and just learned to enjoy life as it was without a lot of extras. We had a nice life but I’d never say it was a life filled with waste or greed. And to have some stranger basically say that we live in a culture of waste and it’s time to pay the price, etc. I sort of think “hey. Wait. Speak for yourself and your circle of friends, buddy. Because I’m over here in Responsibility Land, and have been pretty much since my first job at age 12.”
And yes, I get really sick of that whole Heartland V. The Coasts meme that folks from both sides are playing up now. Sick of seeing shows set in in Indiana in a vague effort to appeal to The Heartland, even though it seems like they’ve been created by someone who has only a mocking view of what goes on there.
I’m starting to realise that my closed-offness is doing bad things to my worldview, because I AM forgetting all the WUOCC people I know here. Even though I’ve run into them recently
Now, wait. Don’t be knockin’ “The Middle”, my favorite new show.
Oh, Kat. xoxo
I feel like I spent my whole time in NYC telling friends “the Midwest (or South) is not like that,” and here I spend my whole time telling friends “NYC is not like that.” I suppose it’s a good thing we’re more spread out than they are in the Balkans, is all. But I am now going to start referring to Those People as WUOCC because it sounds like what I think of them.
I’ve never seen “The Middle”, slarti. I was specifically referring to Parks And Recreation, which is really funny but occassionally stoops to mockery.
Is The Middle set in Indiana also?
feel like I spent my whole time in NYC telling friends “the Midwest (or South) is not like that,” and here I spend my whole time telling friends “NYC is not like that.” I suppose it’s a good thing we’re more spread out than they are in the Balkans, is all.
I should know better than to generalise. It just is this hot button with me, I guess.
I will say that WUOCC is better than “Hipster Doofus” which is what a number of folks I know refer to that attitude as. I think it’s probably more eternal a disconnect than I’m giving it credit for, what with that ants and grasshoppers fable.
I’m doing a lot of thinking out loud here, trying to work through this dynamic. And I’m sure some of it is my guilt at being so far removed from the salt mines at this point in my life. I’m aware that we owe a lot to the segment of society who drives innovation, that people who buy luxury items create new markets and that for a long time some of the best employers for lower-wage people were key luxury providers (Whole Foods and Starbucks come to mind) So it’s not as though WUOCC people are useless to the engine of survival. I guess I just bristle at the idea that all of us make the same bad decisions all of the time….especially since so many of my decisions were made because of my desire to save money. If I’d been selfish I would have stayed in college and played around and studied all the things that interested me. But I didn’t want to burden my parents or myself with that debt so I made another decision. That sort of thing.
I have a bad history with fearmongers, because triumphing over fear is often the hardest thing for me to do.
Now this comment has officially devolved into complete stream of consciousness and has very little bearing on conversation, I suppose. ;-p
Yes ‘The Middle’ is set in Indiana (thus, the title – the middle of the country), and the husband is so frank about everything, pulling no punches, it makes me think of you.
The whole rioting in the streets part of the prediction is striking to me, and I think that definitely does reflect a big-city mentality. I don’t think folks in NYC or LA are actually more likely to riot, but it does seem to be the sort of reaction people there are more likely to think of as a possiblity. For instance, when there was a big power outage in NYC a few years ago we heard all sorts of city dwellers brag that nobody had taken to the steets in a violent show of frustration. I’ve never, ever heard anyone outside of a major city consider that a possible reaction to being without electricity.
As for wastrels, they are everywhere, but I think it is easier to spot them in cities. It’s also easier to spot the homeless there, and they’re everywhere, too.