The top 10% of earners—households making about $250,000 a year or more—are splurging on everything from vacations to designer handbags, buoyed by big gains in stocks, real estate and other assets.
Those consumers now account for 49.7% of all spending, a record in data going back to 1989, according to an analysis by Moody’s Analytics. Three decades ago, they accounted for about 36%.
The top-level post uses a gift link. When it runs out, there is an archived copy of the article.
Not quite. We need to get off the consumer bandwagon and learn to appreciate what we have.
People are miserable because they’re constantly trying to “keep up with the jones’” which means wasting money on bullshit they don’t need and have been conditioned to want.
Until the working class learns to appreciate different things, we shouldn’t expect anything to change or improve.
I ended up reading your other comments. You’re out of touch with reality and there’s nothing I could say that others haven’t already brought up, and since you’re not listening to them I doubt you’ll listen to me. So the only thing I can add is that you should start practicing what you’re preaching and get off the internet because the internet is a luxury. Then again I imagine you won’t have a problem justifying your own “wasting money on bullshit” because you can afford it.
Yeah, no.
It’s not an “all-or-nothing” thing. That’s what consumers have been convinced to believe so that they don’t feel guilty about contributing to the problem. You’re doing it right now.
It’s not an all or nothing thing, getting rid of consumerism would definitely be a net positive for society. But your suggestion goes squarely in the same hole as “to solve climate change people need to watch their carbon footprint” while completely ignoring the fact that the biggest polluters are corporations. Or the “to solve microplastics people need to sort their trash” which again completely ignores the fact that a very small part of plastics are recyclable because most corporations won’t spend extra money to make more recyclable plastics (or ideally not use plastics at all).
What you’re suggesting is a net positive in the context of the problem but its not going to solve the problem. Just like with climate change and microplastics your “solution” is just kicking the can down the road instead of actually solving the problem.