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The Coming Siege of Austerity
James Howard Kunstler, blog
… So many forces are arrayed against a return to the previous “normal” that we will be lucky, in another eighteen months, to still find ourselves speaking English and celebrating Christmas. What’s “out there” is a panorama of mutually reinforcing critical problems pertaining to how we live on this continent. Like the obesity, heart disease, and diabetes that plague the public, these problems are disorders of lifestyle habits and the only possible “cure” is a comprehensive revision of lifestyle. With the onset of spring weather and the cheez doodles and monster truck rallies and Nascar tailgate barbeques and the drive-in beer emporiums all beckoning, can the public public shift its attention from these infantile preoccupations to saving its own ass?
So far, the most striking piece of the economic fiasco is the absence of any galvanizing spirit among the millions getting crushed in the tragic unwind of our relations with money. It will be interesting to see, for instance, if there is any uproar over the evolving story of Goldman Sachs’s latest raid on the US Treasury, after booking billions in taxpayer-funded payouts funneled through AIG, based on double-hedged credit default swaps.
(13 April 2009)
What’s the secret to an endless vacation?
Christopher Elliott, MSNBC
Nine tips for becoming a ‘new’ nomad in 2009
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… As many as a million Americans now live nomadic lifestyles, and their numbers appear to be growing because of the ailing economy and the aging population. Richard Grant, author of the book “American Nomads: Travels with Lost Conquistadors, Mountain Men, Cowboys, Indians, Hoboes, Truckers, and Bullriders” says the influx is being fueled from two sides of the income spectrum. At the top end, “it’s people taking early retirement and living on boats, folks with money finding ways to stay on permanent vacation, that sort of thing,” he says. And at the bottom, travelers who have lost their homes and jobs and don’t want to wait around to find out what’s next.
“For now, it is early in this trend and there is no reliable data,” says Clark University history professor Deborah Dwork, who is an authority on the subject. “All you have to do, however, is look at the lines of people snaking around city blocks, hoping to get a minute of a recruiters’ time for the few jobs that are in the area. You can ascertain what the future holds for many of them.”
(13 April 2009)
Related from Salon: Giving the recession the finger (“My job prospects were diminishing, the economy was convulsing, but I said “screw it” — and took a vacation I couldn’t afford.”).
Austere Times? Perfect
Matt Richtel, New York Times
Millions of Americans have trimmed expenses because they have had their jobs or hours cut, or fear they will. But a subset of savers are reducing costs not just with purpose, but with relish. These are the gleefully frugal.
“I’m enjoying this,” said Becky Martin, 52, who has cut up her 10 credit cards, borrows movies from the library instead of renting them, and grows her own fruits and vegetables — even though her family is comfortable.
Ms. Martin is a real estate investor, her husband is a plastic surgeon, and their home sits on the 12th hole of a Cincinnati country club.
“It’s a chance to pass along the frugal lifestyle that my mother gave to me,” she says, noting that her sensibilities seem to be rubbing off not just on her sons, but also on her husband. “We’re on the same page financially for the first time in years, and it’s fabulous.”
Americans’ spending is down and their personal savings are up — sharply. The savings rate in the United States, which had fallen steadily since the early 1980s, dropped to less than 1 percent in August of 2008. It has since spiked to 5 percent.
“It’s huge,” said Martha Olney, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who specializes in the Great Depression, consumerism and indebtedness. The rapid reversal is even more remarkable, she said, because in recessions consumers usually save less money. Not this time. “It implies a re-emergence of thrift as a value,” she said.
The gleefully frugal happily seek new ways to economize and take pride in outsaving the Joneses. The mantra is cut, cut, cut — magazine and cable subscriptions, credit cards, fancy coffee drinks and your own hair.
(10 April 2009)
