See also Linder's book "the Harried Leisure Class." -----Original Message----- From: Keith Hudson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, June 22, 2003 2:58 AM To: Ed Weick Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: My marble bathroom? (wasRe: [Futurework] What's the next thing?
Ed, I was being rhetorical in asking Krugman to supply "the next big thing" that would stimulate the economy and get consumers buying again. You're right, of course. American consumers are frightened. Even if they were awash with money (like a substantial proportion of Japanese consumers who have plenty of cash in the bank but are still not spending), it is possible that Americans still wouldn't be spending at the present time. They can smell that something is badly amiss in the woodwork. (It's the same in England. We have what appears to be a consumer strike going on, even though we have nowhere near the unemployment of France, Germany or Italy. It's probably the same in Canada, I guess.) But then there's an even more difficult problem looming. This is that the prosperous middle-class sector of the population (the one that always sets consumer trends) might not have enough time or energy in their daily lives to consume any more products that are substantial enough to be economically significant. A prescient Fred Hirsch made a similar point in his book, "Social Limits to Growth", 50 years ago. It was then considered a slightly airy-fairy observation from an academic but it is surely correct and perhaps it's already happening in a significant way -- but so far not taken into account by economists and public intellectuals. I think there are many signs of this already. Fifteen years ago when my penultimate business was going through a prosperous phase, I bought a Georgian house. It's a 'listed' building so it can't be changed architecturally, but many of its internal facilities had been renovated according to the fashion of the time -- such as wall-to-wall carpeting in the bathrooms (and up the sides of the baths, so help me), a natural lime-wood kitchen with all the modern gadgets (some of which we don't use). I am now intending to sell my house in order to move to a less hilly location, and I am told by house agents that in order to sell my house at its maximum price, I should now renovate my bathrooms with marble floors and have a brand new kitchen layout according to modern canons as shown in the colour supplements of the posh newspapers. I suddenly realised that this extremely expensive form of spending is what has become significant in recent years. Most middle-class people simply don't want any consumer items that are additional to the ones they already have because they haven't enough time or energy to enjoy them. Thus, many possible new consumer items that are sufficiently expensive to have status value are no longer in demand. Instead, consumers are turning towards other forms of status-flaunting such as expensive embellishments of existing commodities such as SUVs instead of cars, and marble-floored bathrooms. Keith Hudson At 11:15 21/06/2003 -0400, you wrote: >Keith, rather than not finding "the next big thing", the problem may be >lifting the pervasive mood of fear and uncertainty based on too many code >oranges, continuous reminders of vulnerability to terror, and the real >threat of job and income loss without adequate social security. It's >difficult to see how Americans can have much faith in either their economy >or their personal situation right now. The best strategy would appear to be >to stay liquid, or, if stocks move up, ride them for a little while but >don't stay in them. Last time round, many investors didn't know they were >part of a bubble. This time they probably do. > >Ed Weick > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Keith Hudson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Sent: Saturday, June 21, 2003 3:44 AM >Subject: [Futurework] What's the next thing? > > > > I think that Paul Krugman is quite right in yesterday's Op-Ed. The recent > > flurry in the stock market will not last. There are too many other adverse > > economic circumstances for any sensible person to have any sort of > > optimism. Krugman's problem is, however, that he doesn't have any clear > > idea of what the solution might be. What I want to know from him -- or, > > indeed, any other prominent economist -- is what is going to be the > > consumer product attractive enough for consumers to start spending their > > money again (that is, if they have any to spare for a year or two while > > they pay off their credit card debts)? -------etc. > Keith Hudson, 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath, England _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
