That said, I don't think we have to give up shopping or the enjoyment it brings us. It's fun to buy a new thing and enjoy it. I just think maybe we should space it out a little bit and enjoy the things we have a little more. And when we're not using them, we should let others use them, especially those who may not be able to afford such things on their own. It's a little kindness to pass along. Shopping is a way to connect with people and improve our lives. Also, from what I understand, huge amounts of American spending help other countries' economies, and if we were all to stop spending so much at once, it would really damage other people. Not that we should go broke to help countries develop - what good would that do? But I hope we can find a balance between our love of stuff and caring about the welfare of other people and the earth.

I'm sure I come off as a crazy person, but whatevers :D

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Not that I know firsthand what it was like back in the day for homebuyers, but I'm fairly sure that people used to make much larger down payments and own a lot more equity in their homes. Now people are buying houses/apartments young and without savings- what banks used to rightly consider "unqualified"- and consider making their minimum monthly mortgage payments "ownership."

I think that's because people expect a much higher percentage of their income to be spent on consumer spending than they did in the past. Young couples who make 60,000+ a year, say, are expected to dine out at vastly overpriced chic bistros, own updated and largely unnecessary consumer electronics like iphones and high-def tv's, shop at mid to upmarket clothing stores and take a couple "nice" vacations a year. And I'm not even talking about New York (though I imagine you'd need a bit more money to be a real yuppie there). Personally, I wouldn't consider that extravagant, though I bet a young, middle class couple in the 50's wouldn't have dreamed of living that way if their parents had anything to say about it.

It seems to me that very few people in their twenties/early thirties make much of a habit of saving money, since they don't have to do so to "own" a place (thanks to stupid banking). That leads to a larger amount of discretionary income to spend, plus retailers who'll give you somewhere to spend it. The fashion industry tells you it's expected of you and natural, and everyone else is doing it, so their advertising plus peer reinforcement leads to the illusion that you aren't really living beyond your means when you very much so are.

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I don't have much of note to contribute, other than that you summed it up perfectly. The fashion industry, while nauseatingly visible and seemingly antithetical to the situation most of us find ourselves in, is no less immune from what is going on right now than any other. And yeah, it's the fault of rich white men on Wall Street and THEIR culture of greed, which eclipses any other.

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And it's easy to point the finger and say "THAT RIGHT THERE IS THE PROBLEM! That festooned, velveted, blinged-out conspicuous consumerism! THAT'S the problem! It's spearheaded by a bunch of spendthrift plebes who were given ridiculous lines of credit and USED IT TO FURTHER THEIR OWN DEMISE Fuck you, plebes, your free-spending ways have got us into this huge mess and now it's all your fault!"

Except it's not. It's the fault of a bunch of moneyed old white guys in custom-tailored suits who sat in their fancy boardrooms in fancy financial offices, and looked about at their busy and moderately-compensated back office staff, who were just trying to make a living. And they told their worker bees: "This boom will never end! Get into subprime, get into speculation, get into Madoff, get into credit-default swaps. The sky is the limit! This bubble will never burst! Invest in ridiculous things and watch the money pour in. We will live like KINGS!"

This corporate/cultural attitude of excess, free-wheeling deals and easy credit, probably leached over into the way people expressed themselves through fashion. When everyone could buy stupid blingy shit on credit, because a bunch of highly-paid strategists in nice offices decided it would be rad to get more credit card customers because their debt could be sold and repackaged into interesting and lucrative securities? Well, some savvy designers and retailers realized that some people had the wherewithal to buy stupid shiny shit, and they began to offer more stupid shiny shit. And a market was formed for it.

It wasn't the other way around.

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And ok, clothes are an easy target because they're tangible, visible in shops all around us; home loans aren't being toted around in be-logo'd carrier bags. But just because they're an easy target and a lazy symbol doesn't mean they should be completely dismissed as a symptom of, and maybe even a catalyst for - oh god - a greater societal malaise.

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But one thing that bothers me to no end is having to defend reading them in the first place. I actually had a friend in college that used to remark about how much money I "wasted" on them, but then felt perfectly fine about sitting on my bed reading them for hours on end. Seriously.

Blaming the current economic crisis on fashion? Does not compute.

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