The Consumer Economy Becomes Consumptive

The Randall Park Mall in Ohio was once the world’s largest, with two million square feet. It has ben rotting down since 2009. (Photo by Nicholas Eckhart/Flickr)

The Randall Park Mall in Ohio was once the world’s largest, with two million square feet. It has ben rotting down since 2009. (Photo by Nicholas Eckhart/Flickr)

The Masters of the Universe like to talk about our “consumer economy,” as if we have discovered the equivalent of the perpetual motion machine: an economy that can prosper while consuming, without having to produce anything except fast food and loan documents. Such an economy has the future of a snake that has swallowed its own tail — that full feeling is not going to last. Such an economy is not a “consumer” economy — that is almost an oxymoron — but a consumptive economy, which is to say one suffering from a wasting disease.

People trapped in a burning building don’t spend much time worrying about whether they have a wasting disease. So it’s understandable that with the American oil revolution imploding and the stock market reeling drunkenly along the edge of a cliff, not much attention is being paid to the spreading dry rot of ordinary American retail business. Still, it’s there. Continue reading

Living the Dream. No, Really, You’re Dreaming. Wake Up.

If American consumers would just consume more, the American economy would be all right. Whether you think they are, or are not, doing their part depends on who you read. Amd whether you’re awake or dreaming. (Wikipedia Photo)

If American consumers would just consume more, the American economy would be all right. Whether you think they are, or are not, doing their part depends on who you read. Amd whether you’re awake or dreaming. (Wikipedia Photo)

Fortune Magazine, the journal of the Masters of the Universe, posted the following headline at 11:33 yesterday morning: “U.S. shoppers finally shed funk: Retailers post strong holiday season gains.” At the same time the experts at NASDAQ.com. writing for the same audience of one-percenters, headlined: “Retail Sales Drop .9% as Consumers Pull Back.” Wait, what? Did we Americans shed our funk, as Fortune insisted (“retail sales for November and December rose 4%…the industry’s best showing in three years.”) or pull back, as NASDAQ saw it (“Sales at retailers and restaurants decreased a seasonally adjusted 0.9% in December from a month earlier…the largest monthly decline since January 2014.”)

So to summarize: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… Continue reading