After listing three types of post-Bush American consumers (totally broke, not totally broke, not not totally broke), Paco Underhill, a retail expert, offers this insight:

Also, there’s an entangling of consumption and morality. I just heard a story about somebody saying, ‘I can afford a new car, but I’m not going to get one, because I just had to lay a bunch of people off.’ It’s an interesting issue, just in the same way that green was political issue, and then it became a moral issue. There’s the fundamental realization that Americans have woken up. Their bellies are too big, their cars are too big, their homes are too big, their debts are too big, and they have to go on some kind of a diet. The era of “bling” is over

The green ethic (and ethic in its original sense—habit) which was shaped by a long and slow political process, now has the support of a spending ethic shaped by current economic pressures. The hope is that the combination of the process and pressures will produce a durable planetary, post-Bling/Bush ethic. The hope is that Americans will fight to remain awake.

Charles Mudede—who writes about film, books, music, and his life in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and the UK for The Stranger—was born near a steel plant in Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe. He has no memory...

15 replies on “The Big Sleep”

  1. Bling is dead.

    But … Gucci has some very cool shoes – and they’re a lot cheaper today than they were last year …

    Americans have a bad habit of extremes – you’re either spend spend spend or save save save.

    Try moderation – instead of living BEYOND your means, or living WELL BELOW your means, try to live WITHIN your means – pay off some debt, put some in a credit union, and change a little.

    If you do that the economy will be just fine.

  3. Western folks will become “asleep” again once things become good in the economy, whenever that happens.

    Humanity tends to have to make hard adjustments to reality as time passes.

    In some ways, it does seem like a higher plateau every time is reached. The next plateau will hopefully be sexuality-blind, one would hope.

    Relatively speaking, it’s just equilibrium as usual.

  7. Greed in this country will never die. It’s just waiting for the Republican’s return on a Tsunami of lies so they can, once again, loot the taxpayers.

  9. @2

    Well, it’s comforting to know that whenever we have a chance to better humanity, there will always be folks like you around to fling shit and preserve the status quo.

  10. @8 — you are in the wrong thread.

    Americans love spending when they have the cash, so @3 is right.

    BTW: This is the first Mudede post that makes any sense to me. Thanks for avoiding the stilted pedantic style, Charles.

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