Age of Consumerism: Avarice, Wealth, & the Jones'
The United States is suffering through one of the greatest economic downturns in its history.The “Great Recession,” as it been called, has put Americans into a deep funk. Signs of portents had percolated for years that a great economic downfall was amassing . The exporting of jobs began in the mid-1980s with manufacturing,and later the importation of cheaper steel took jobs away from the America’s Rustbelt states, such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Maryland. The transfer of wealth from the Middle Class to the top two percent cemented the betrayal of the American Dream.
Prior to the financial crash in early 2000, the technology boom of the 1990s began to crater and the psychological impact of September 11, 2001 shook Americans to their core. The United States was headed to war with Afghanistan and Iraq. While Americans were encouraged to buy their way out of the emotional trepidations, political machinations in Washington spent trillions of dollars on the machinery of war; set up unfunded mandates, such as No Child Left Behind, and passed the Medicare Part-D, and cut an unprecedented amount of taxes out of the federal budget.
Critics of Medicare Part-D point out, although that cost for the program has been significantly less than projected, its average cost for the next decade will exceed that of inflation at proximately 10 percent per year (see Ezra Klein, of the Washington Post, articles 1 & 2). Defenders of Medicare Part-D, on the other hand, assert that the market base competition is actually curtailing the cost of prescription drug costs (see James Capretta article of The Heritage Institute) and shows why this model will work for containing health care cost.
Along side these events, financial decisions were being made by United States Congress, and President Bill Clinton in 1999 by the reversing of the Glass--Steagle Act, which prevented banks selling securities and financial mechanisms, such as derivatives (see Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act). According to Bergen Jersey Foreclosures website, democratic Senator Byron Dorgan proposed an amendment that would have barred the banks and credit unions from using the financial mechanisms of derivatives.
The anger that followed the 2008 financial crisis that sent Americans into a conniption fit manifested itself into the form of self-flagellation and curious form of euphoric hope.The disparate emotions were the results of the 2008 presidential election. On the one hand, the citizenry of the country was in an euphoric state with the election of President Obama; and on the other hand, the eclectic levels of frustration of a political system that resulted in an overabundance of crony capitalism, and self-involvement led to disillusionment of the entitled consumer by the fall of the financial markets.
The Age of Consumerism: the keeping up with the Jones, the Smiths, and the Von Trapp families left the average American believing that they could have it all. All Americans had to do was put it on credit. For over thirty-years, the economic model was to spend beyond one’s means. To have what one wants, when one wants it. Americans need for instant gratification and sense of entitlement for ownership drove the economy.
The need for instant gratification created a culture of impatience, indulgence, and political polarization. The financial collapse of 2008 ensued, in part, because of the attitudes of the financial firms, regulators and congress. For instance, Alan Greenspan monetary policies mindset during his tenure allowed for the Age of Consumerism be engulfed by avarice of the culture. Greenspan’s policies, therefore, of low interest rates on short-term loans and bonds sprinted the economy forward and created a false sense of security, which catalyzed into the formation of co-dependency of entitlements and fiscal irresponsibility. These policies also ingratiated themselves with this false confidence and led eventually to the bailouts for the “too big to fail” banks and securities firms.
Alan Greenspan admitted that mistakes in his monetary policies for the United States were made and yet he said in October 2011, U. S. News and World Report, “We all misjudged the risks involved. Everybody missed it—academia, the Federal Reserve, all the regulators,” in an article that, in part, accounted for the inaccurate forecasting of 2008. The article author’s, Steve Beck, further asserts that the predicting of market forces accurately is and was a precarious venture at best.
Nevertheless, despite the precarious nature of predicting market forces and the resulting financial crisis of 2008, it was foreseeable that economic boom of the real estate market and other financial mechanisms were headed for a bust. History itself had been an indicator of boom and bust cycles of capitalism. Ancillary of these factors, those with a living memory (or the foresight to adhere to historical trends) of the last real estate bust with savings and loans debacle of the 1980s had positioned themselves accordingly.
The aforementioned contributory factors of the past decade and the generational shift in savings rate attributed to the political and economic betrayal of America ethos. The betrayal of America therefore has become ingrained allowing for the furtherance of a generational institutions to become bloated and overly bureaucratic with ineffective regulations and philosophies. It is time for Americans to take back responsibility of the American Dream; stunt the growth of our own and politicians avarice; and, hold accountable our own disillusionment of consumerism.
Prior to the financial crash in early 2000, the technology boom of the 1990s began to crater and the psychological impact of September 11, 2001 shook Americans to their core. The United States was headed to war with Afghanistan and Iraq. While Americans were encouraged to buy their way out of the emotional trepidations, political machinations in Washington spent trillions of dollars on the machinery of war; set up unfunded mandates, such as No Child Left Behind, and passed the Medicare Part-D, and cut an unprecedented amount of taxes out of the federal budget.
Critics of Medicare Part-D point out, although that cost for the program has been significantly less than projected, its average cost for the next decade will exceed that of inflation at proximately 10 percent per year (see Ezra Klein, of the Washington Post, articles 1 & 2). Defenders of Medicare Part-D, on the other hand, assert that the market base competition is actually curtailing the cost of prescription drug costs (see James Capretta article of The Heritage Institute) and shows why this model will work for containing health care cost.
Along side these events, financial decisions were being made by United States Congress, and President Bill Clinton in 1999 by the reversing of the Glass--Steagle Act, which prevented banks selling securities and financial mechanisms, such as derivatives (see Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act). According to Bergen Jersey Foreclosures website, democratic Senator Byron Dorgan proposed an amendment that would have barred the banks and credit unions from using the financial mechanisms of derivatives.
The anger that followed the 2008 financial crisis that sent Americans into a conniption fit manifested itself into the form of self-flagellation and curious form of euphoric hope.The disparate emotions were the results of the 2008 presidential election. On the one hand, the citizenry of the country was in an euphoric state with the election of President Obama; and on the other hand, the eclectic levels of frustration of a political system that resulted in an overabundance of crony capitalism, and self-involvement led to disillusionment of the entitled consumer by the fall of the financial markets.
The Age of Consumerism: the keeping up with the Jones, the Smiths, and the Von Trapp families left the average American believing that they could have it all. All Americans had to do was put it on credit. For over thirty-years, the economic model was to spend beyond one’s means. To have what one wants, when one wants it. Americans need for instant gratification and sense of entitlement for ownership drove the economy.
The need for instant gratification created a culture of impatience, indulgence, and political polarization. The financial collapse of 2008 ensued, in part, because of the attitudes of the financial firms, regulators and congress. For instance, Alan Greenspan monetary policies mindset during his tenure allowed for the Age of Consumerism be engulfed by avarice of the culture. Greenspan’s policies, therefore, of low interest rates on short-term loans and bonds sprinted the economy forward and created a false sense of security, which catalyzed into the formation of co-dependency of entitlements and fiscal irresponsibility. These policies also ingratiated themselves with this false confidence and led eventually to the bailouts for the “too big to fail” banks and securities firms.
Alan Greenspan admitted that mistakes in his monetary policies for the United States were made and yet he said in October 2011, U. S. News and World Report, “We all misjudged the risks involved. Everybody missed it—academia, the Federal Reserve, all the regulators,” in an article that, in part, accounted for the inaccurate forecasting of 2008. The article author’s, Steve Beck, further asserts that the predicting of market forces accurately is and was a precarious venture at best.
Nevertheless, despite the precarious nature of predicting market forces and the resulting financial crisis of 2008, it was foreseeable that economic boom of the real estate market and other financial mechanisms were headed for a bust. History itself had been an indicator of boom and bust cycles of capitalism. Ancillary of these factors, those with a living memory (or the foresight to adhere to historical trends) of the last real estate bust with savings and loans debacle of the 1980s had positioned themselves accordingly.
The aforementioned contributory factors of the past decade and the generational shift in savings rate attributed to the political and economic betrayal of America ethos. The betrayal of America therefore has become ingrained allowing for the furtherance of a generational institutions to become bloated and overly bureaucratic with ineffective regulations and philosophies. It is time for Americans to take back responsibility of the American Dream; stunt the growth of our own and politicians avarice; and, hold accountable our own disillusionment of consumerism.
Comments