Frugal is cool in cash-strapped US (Guardian UK)

[Sinistrous]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/04/us-economy-thrift-barack-obama

In the grip of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, America has undergone radical changes. Greed is no longer good and luxury is a shameful word. Paul Harris in New York analyses the tests facing the new president of a shattered nation

<snip>

This new America is what Barack Obama has inherited. It is in many ways a broken country. When Obama takes the oath of office on 20 January watched by millions of Americans, his burden will be heavy in the extreme. The scale of the disaster is so large that Obama being America's first black president will almost be a historical footnote. The numbers describe the extent of the catastrophe best. Seven trillion dollars has been wiped off a stock market that has dropped 33%, its biggest fall since 1931. Two million jobs have disappeared, wages are frozen and millions have lost their homes. The Federal Reserve is printing billions of dollars to keep the economy afloat. Banks have been part nationalised and the car industry of Detroit - once the symbol of the all-American lifestyle - is on life support and may not see the end of 2009.

These terrible facts are accompanied by a profound cultural shift. The era of individualistic consumption that swept aside the Great Society of the 1960s has come to an end. For three decades, American culture has celebrated the glories of unabashed capitalism and the ideals of the rich. No longer. From Hollywood movies to celebrity culture to television, frugalism is taking hold. Consumers are cutting back. Luxury brands are falling by the wayside. Even the excesses of the sporting world, from the Super Bowl to Nascar, are being curbed.

A national belt-tightening is having an impact on everything from restaurants and books to a collapse in the demand for cosmetic surgery. The recession is reshaping the cultural landscape in which ordinary people live their lives. As it prepares to inaugurate a new president, America is also trying to forge a fresh identity in a world unimaginably different from the one inherited by George W Bush only eight years ago.

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As destructive as a shift in the public's attitude such as described here will be to the economy, I have to think it will ultimately be a good thing. It would return our focus onto what things are truly important and valuable.

[DBoon]

1. Does this mean the America Reagan created is finally gone

I hope so.

Gordon Gecko, RIP

[southernyankeebelle]

2. What good did Regan Do?

The only thing I can think good that Reagan did was to bring pride back to the military and building them up. The rest he did nothing good. He was a union buster starting with the Airline Traffic controls. He left office with a large debt. No he didn't do anything good for us. Oh wait, he wasn't Bush I or Bush II. The Reagan had enough sense to know they were losers. Its to bad they didn't worn the rest of the country.