patrick.net

"We're gonna need a longer wall..."

Post-consumerism is an emerging trend. It will become more popular by necessity in the coming years. Time magazine will run an article about "The NEW downsizing!" People will brag about how they bike to work, or how they moved out of their mcmansion to a cozy shared apartment. People will take pride in their downsizing.

To cite one example of this emerging trend, try counting Priuses in Santa Barbara or Santa Monica. People now drive a Prius if they want to make a statement.

At the end of the day, when the HB glitz has faded, people will return to the basics. When flipping s**tboxes is no longer an easy way to make money quickly, people will again realize that making money is hard to do and the gubmint always takes half (give or take). That means if you can cut your consumption by $1, you can get away with making $2 less in gross income, which means more time for the family (or blogging).

Ok, Robert, you've stumped me --what are "Pirii"? Googled it, but haven't found anything informative.

HARM,

I don't think there's anything surprising about being less materialistic compared to the last 5 years. I've been shocked at the crassiness of post 2001 consumeristic culture.

The attitude of people HELOCing themselves out of financial trouble and spending extravagently on their modest wages is just sickening. Gee, I wonder what happens when you take the equivalent of your annual pre-tax salary and spend it on an H-2. Yeah, I'm really sure that works out well for you. Hey you, the realtor's assistant with 5 genuine designer bags and a $15,000 credit card debt, I'm sure it was all in good fun.

I also don't think anyone here is planning to go shirtless in an ashram anytime soon. The folks you mentions just stepped off the hamster wheel and decided to get more utility out of their earned dollar. They've got sufficient self awareness to maximize their personal utility functions and go with the most efficient outcome. They're not conspicuously unconsuming, they're just smart.

I believe in the next age it will be unlawful to base health insurance premium on age.

GREAT topic and illustrated by one of my favorite novels/movies.

If anyone doubts what year it really is, all they have to do is read the economic reports from the Fed Reserve and Newspeak becomes a reality. Society casts a jaundiced eye on anyone who doesn't conform to the debt = wealth philosophy and are considered agents of Emmanuel Goldstein. Last but not least, O'brien knows what your innermost fear consists of and the threat of having to face it keeps everyone under control.....I could go on and on.

Sorry Apple, 1984 IS like 1984.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=z9PQ16KVntQ

I do LOVE that commercial....the most successful in the history of advertising

astrid,

Your comments are bordering on counter-revolutionary. Apparently, you too are badly in need of some "re-education" at an NAR facility. You have been reported to the Ministry of Debt (minibroke) and must turn yourself in to the nearest mortgage broker at once!
Let this serve as a warning to others...

Citizen HARM

SFWoman,

Thanks! I'll pass it on.

HARM,

Hehe. Will the re-education be free and involve a timeshare tour in S. FL?

I will try a live Australian lobster. How are they best though? I tried them steamed and they were not good, and my husband doesn’t like sashimi.

They are very different and they cannot be cooked like Maine lobsters. (Steaming is a bad idea.) Are they the best? It depends on the cooking method and your preference.

They should first be cut into pieces and then cooked. In contract, Maine lobsters are usually cooked whole.

Aussie lobsters can also take more sauce and spice. Maine lobsters are a lot more delicate.

@astrid,
No and Yes.

Robert G. Allen, Carlton Sheets and Tony Robbins do not come cheap! However, if you are unable to raise the necessary cash, it's no problem. During your re-education, you will learn how to extract money from dirt (and blood from a turnip).

Citizen HARM

Priuses might make sense in mild climates. I heard that they get pretty blah mpg in cold weather places.

Diesel or small car with small engine is still the way to go for gas efficiency. If only the roads were so crowded with 3 ton "light" trucks.

The zero percent and 1% CC lines of credit arbitrage is becoming awfully profitable, especially if you're in a relatively low tax bracket.

The zero percent and 1% CC lines of credit arbitrage is becoming awfully profitable, especially if you’re in a relatively low tax bracket.

But it is extremely easy to get bumped into 23.99% rate. Watch out!

SFWoman, if you do want to have a live Aussie lobster at a Chinese Restaurant, try to have it sauteed in "supreme broth".

You can also ask the restaurant to make a soup with the head.

Or you can just ask the restaurant to surprise you and prepare 2-3 dishes with the creature.

HARM,
Sorry to nitpick (just a little), but it's ironic that the graphic for this thread was produced by one of the poster children of the Boomers, Steve Jobs.

Here's a sign that the housing bubble has truly jumped the shark. My wife and I were channel surfing the other night and came upon an ultra-lame show called "7th Heaven." For those of you who don't watch it (disclaimer -we really don't watch it - really), it's an incredibly insipid show from Aaron Spelling & co about a preacher and his family (7 kids, I'd imagine??) Well, turns out on this episode, one of the grown kids wants to start flipping homes with the mother as his business partner!! It's REALLY over now!

M. Cote,

In my experience, CA diesel is about the same price as normal unleaded. The current situation of low gas prices is probably an election year manipulation. I doubt it'll last.

I'm firmly behind the venerable Sir Cote' on this one.

You are all being fooled.

They want you to think that Less is More is counterrevolutionary. In fact, the simplicity movement is little more than a costume for the neo-rich.

If they can't keep the overpaid shackled in blatant consumer and real-estate debt, then convince them of the righteousness of purchasing premium status-symbols declaring their "non-consumption".

Prius, Whole Foods, Fair Trade Organics, Herbalaromahomeopathic snake oil.

Meanwhile the rich keep getting richer.

Meanwhile a farmer in Indiana, spreading "natural organics" across his grain field with his 25 year old diesel Deere wonders what all those crazy folks on the coasts are fussing about now.

"All Hail Eris!"

I've said it before here, but I'll say it again just for something to say.

I was shocked when I moved over here at the mass, nay - let's call a spade a spade - crass comsumerism over on this side of the pond.
And, more than the sheer waste of it all, it irked me that people who had all the trappings of the American Dream looked down on me as if I was inferior!

Me?
Who never had a dishwasher, microwave, tumble dryer, washing machine, cellphone, car, air conditioning, central heating, no TV for 10 years, or a Credit Card until I hit 40 (which coincided by me coming to the US).
Who grew enough veg in the back garden to effectively stop buying it at supermarkets, and have enough left over to hand over bushels of produce to my friends.
Who had the good sense to get a Hard Science degree in a country that, up until recently, had a free university education system?

No, apparently, over here that just makes you wierd.
By not consuming, you doom yourself to being a knit-your-own-muesli hippy-type in the Greatest Country in The World.

I know this by the glazed, incomprhending looks I used to get when pontificating upon the best types of salad potato to grow in clayey soils....or the most effective method for washing clothes in the bath...or the plethora of things you can do without a TV.

So, yes, bring on the plasma handcuffs. I'm in desperate need of Re-Education. My debt-to-income ratio is far too low.

...must......con...sume.....

:-)

alien Says:

Skibum,
Produced? Or merely paid for?

I meant made and spit out in the general sense of the word "produce." Obviously they hired an ad agency to write and direct that commercial. Anyway, Apple has lost all most all of its cool factor for me.

@skibum,

I love Big Boomer. There is no irony.

Citizen HARM

i'm not only postmodern but postconsumer as well... and a few other posts, come to think of it... post-political, post-industrial (will sit for cash)...

but the cost of velopedes is coming down...

“We’re gonna need a longer wall…”
hmm, yes, seems like it... where's that quote from? it has a certain resonance i like...

@Randy H,

Have you considered a job in our Ministry of Marketing (minishill)? We could use a man of your obvious talents.

It really depends on whether you're a corporate person or a real person.

A corporate person wants as much monetized production and consumption as possible, so it could make more money and pay bigger bonuses to the CEO.

A real person may want to partake in non-monetized utility producing activities like playing with their kids, enjoying a home cooked meal and not working for the asshole who only cares about the bottomline so he can get his big bonus at the end of the year.

Speedingpullet,

Do you still vegetable garden? Your description of backyard bounty is making me drool. All I got this year were some severely underperforming luffa, okras, tomatoes and yard long beans. I was expecting 5X greater productivity than I got.

DS: variation on a quote from Tom De Mulder (you don't know him), using the same phrasing as the more well-known Jaws quote "We're gonna need a bigger boat".

Speedingpullet, etc.: I'm feeling an urge to start planting in the back yard myself, and hoping it's not too late. I'm guessing some carrots, broccoli, spinach, onions, and Chinese cabbage.

and have enough left over to hand over bushels of produce to my friends.

1 U.S. bushel = 35.23907017 liters = 8 corn/dry gallons = 9.309177489 wine/liquid gallons

That's 32lb of Oats, 48lb of Barley, 56lb of Corn, 60lb of wheat or soybeans

Worse if you're talking about the Imperial Bushel:
1 Imperial bushel = 36.36872 litres = 8 Imperial gallons

Now, I grew up in rural, Southwest Ohio, where my grandmother had a 2.2 acre "garden", of which about 1/3 was corn. Yet we didn't have bushels of anything left over for anyone. In order to gain any real sustenance from this megagarden, my grandmother and aunts would meticulously set about canning, jarring and pickling everything and anything.

Mmmm. Nothing like canned spinach, frozen corn and pickled beets to satisfy that winter appetite.

No thank you. I guess I'll just keep shilling for evil corporate guy Big Bro. How dare companies like Monsantos dare try to improve yields of things people need to live. Bastards.

After my pension contrib, ROTH, 457 and other misc I’m left with about $1700 for rent, food, entertainment, etc.

Jon,

With cash flow like that, you could easily *qualify* for an NAAVLP for 25x your annual gross. If you curb the retirement "savings" (what a joke --every good citizen knows there's only one "retirement" vehicle: dirt & stucco), then you could easily go 40x.

I believe there's hope for you yet. Stay right where you are --D. Lereah & LAY will be arriving at your pathetic rental post-haste for a bubblenomics crash-course. Do not attempt to escape. Keep your telescreen tuned to Bubblevision (MSNBC) and stay put.

Citizen HARM

I just heard on the news today that the stock market is rallying because the cost of gasoline has gone down twenty five cents a gallon and people will now have more money to spend . Hooray! The economy is saved! I think I'll stop at Fry's on the way home and buy a new big screen high definition television with all the money I'm going to save!

Now let's think about this. The average car has a thirteen gallon gas tank. If you fill it up once a week you save a wopping $3.25 or $13.00 a month. Does anyone realy believe this is going to help?

Robert G. Allen, Carlton Sheets and Tony Robbins do not come cheap! However, if you are unable to raise the necessary cash, it’s no problem. During your re-education, you will learn how to extract money from dirt.

hey, it's no problem, just make a call and get the limit on your credit card/s raised:

"I am told XXX uses mob psychology to get you to sign up for paid seminars. One trick is to get everyone in the room to compete for a prize on who can raise their credit card limits the most. They literally have had attendees calling their credit card companies on a speaker phone in front of everyone. (You should not tell XXX’s people what your credit-card limit is. It’s absolutely no one’s business but yours.) This is apparently aimed at getting you to take out your credit card and get used to doing something with it during the meeting."

Jon said: "So how is 46k “low income”? I can only conclude you take away my retirement contribs and replace them with credit card debt, student loan debt and a car payment."

Hey! You're forgetting about drinking tabs, speeding and parking tickets and must have hangbags/sneakers/outfit.

You may also want to subtract car insurance (too expensive b/c of the speeding tickets).

Randy H said: "No thank you. I guess I’ll just keep shilling for evil corporate guy Big Bro. How dare companies like Monsantos dare try to improve yields of things people need to live. Bastards."

I don't think Monsanto does much with vegetables, even commercial vegetables. Also, most of the vegetable breeding nowadays goes to handling quality, appearance, disease packages (less of a concern for backyard gardeners than people who plant by the acre) and uniform ripening (so they can picked at the same time mechanically. For the backyard gardener, the older varieties tend to be tastier and better yielding. Most of the truck gardening and backyard gardening favorites are from 50 years or more back.

requiem Says:
DS: variation on a quote from Tom De Mulder (you don’t know him), using the same phrasing as the more well-known Jaws quote “We’re gonna need a bigger boat”.

oh, you're so clever...

How dare companies like Monsantos dare try to improve yields of things people need to live. Bastards.

they also try to breed seed stock that can't be re-used, i.e. has sterile offspring, so you will have to keep going back to them every year to buy more seed for next year's crop. not to mention the risks of potentially dangerous GM crops they keep working on and known lack of quarantine issues when testing them literally 'in the field'... maybe they are bastards! 8O

Glen, Randy,

HARM-X industries has already developed the perfect solution to the Whole Foods smug/organic/GMO controversey: Soylent Boomerâ„¢. It's 100% organic (aside from latent chemicals ingested/snorted/injected by the Boomers themselves), is non-GM, high in protein and goes great with Victory Gin! Try our new line of Ben & Jerry's*.

*Not ice cream, but the actual Ben & Jerry.

I dislike Whole Foods because I can't afford it and they don't focus on local produce (to cut down transportation inefficiencies). I also don't like the people they cater to - they tend to be consumerist, holier-than-thou and not particularly educated about the food they buy.

I prefer local farm markets. The produce are usually sustainably grown (often organic in fact if not in certification) and the money goes directly to support small farmers (there are some resellers so it pays to ask if the sellers grew the produce themselves).

It has also, however, been shown that the nutrient levels in organic produce are higher than in industrially farmed produce. Whether you are willing to pay the premium for this is a personal choice.

Whole Foods is just as profit driven as Monsanto. They have a strong incentive to cheat. Sure, studies may have shown that organic foods are healthier--but how do I know that the carrots I pick up at Whole Foods are actually grown in the same way as the carrots in the study? How can I verify it? Anyone can slap the word "Organic" on the label--the FDA is not likely to bat an eyelash. How does Whole Foods make sure that their suppliers don't cheat? Are the vegetables really healthier, or is it all in the mind of the consumer?

By the way, it is interesting to note that the source of the recent e coli outbreak was organically grown spinach. Contrary to popular belief, organically grown sprouts (not beef) have been shown to be the greatest source of e coli infections in recent years. I will take my chances with the trace chemicals in my "non-organic" food over the increased chance of a virulent bacterial or fungal infection. Especially when I can get my veggies for half the price.

(3) Ludditism: Organics make a big deal about being “Non-GMO.” Yet no one has ever shown GMO foods to be dangerous.

except for the tryptophan scare. well, alright, GM bacteria that make tryptophan as a metabolite... don't worry, it's as safe as nucular! or houses...

A wider debate needs to take place on whether the agribusiness model is actually sustainable. The “green revolution” of massively increasing yields since WW2 has been predicated on petrochemically-derived fertilizers and pesticides. This is arguably (extremely) unsustainable. There is also not a widespread understanding of how yields of biofuels rely on these petro-subsidies.

Well, unless you find a way to replace the massively increased yields, a lot more people will go hungry. It may be unsustainable, but until we find something better, we are probably stuck with the current agribusiness model.