
The Covid-19 Recession May Change the Way Americans Spend Forever - axiomdata316
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/annehelenpetersen/recession-unemployment-covid-19-economy-consumer-spending
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downerending
Despite the provenance, this is an insightful article. There are a lot of
things I've discovered that I no longer want, and likely never will again.
Travel, for example, is dangerous and disgusting. Eating in a restaurant is
unsanitary, expensive, and risky. A fancy car? To go where?

The only splurge I've considered in months is a pet. Man's best friend, after
all.

~~~
NotSammyHagar
I really wanted to get a pet, there aren't any animal rescue animals left
where I am - I guess all the other sad people got them already. I want to go
out to a restaurant, meet new people, do something else. There must people
millions of people like me (maybe even my own family feels like I do ;-)) that
I am tired of hanging out with my spouse, my teenaged kids. I want to get
away. I definitely want to travel. why should i save up all my salary for a
future that I might never get to. I want to visit greece, asia, all the places
of the world. I don't need any fancy new shirts of shoes or whatever. I've got
all the clothes I need for a long time. But travel, I want that.

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tareqak
I found the article insightful: confirming some of the ideas I already had,
and giving words for other ideas that are still taking shape. Here are some
choice quotes:

> “After 9/11, and again after the 2008 recession, there was the idea that
> consumers should somehow patriotically spend to revive the economy,” she
> said. “And who benefited disproportionately? Billionaires. This time, the
> billionaires can do the heavy lifting, not me.”

> The “economy” is technically all of the resources of a given area: all of
> its production, all of its consumption. But many people — including a whole
> lot of politicians — use the word “economy” in situations when they really
> mean “the stock market.” The economy is built on consumer spending; the
> stock market is built on projections. Or, as I like to think about it, a
> bunch of guys (and they’re almost entirely guys) sitting around, making
> periodically educated yet often irrational and emotional bets about the
> future. The economy and the stock market are not disarticulated from each
> other, but they are also far from the same thing; it’s no coincidence, after
> all, that the highest levels of income inequality have coincided with
> record-breaking numbers on the stock market.

> According to Visa, credit card spending collapsed in all categories except
> food and drugstores, while savings rates grew from 8% in February to 13.1%
> in March — the highest since 1981.

> “You don’t need to buy anything,” she said. “You just post to the listserv
> what you need, and someone will give it to you. I’ve also seen an amazing
> trade economy emerge: trading yeast for flour, toys for sourdough bread,
> passing clothes from one family to the next.”

> I’ve seen a similar activity in my local “Buy Nothing Sell Nothing” Facebook
> Groups here in Montana: people making and giving away masks, using 3D
> printers to manufacture dupe N95 masks, giving away children’s toys and
> electronics in a “contactless exchange.” Just because you’re not buying
> anything (or buying less) doesn’t mean you’re not experiencing new things,
> doing new things, figuring out new things.

> This might, of course, be a misguided proclamation coming from the inside of
> a pandemic. But in addition to the actual risk (to oneself, to others) of
> buying things, the pandemic has afforded many Americans, whether in
> isolation or out of work, with something they haven’t had in years: time and
> mental space to actually think about the way we spend and its effects on
> others.

> “The thing that’s staying with me is how many of these bad shit purchases
> are attempts to create control and satisfaction from circumstances where I
> (seem to) have little,” he continued. “I’m incredibly lucky that my
> isolation has brought me less stress and more time for myself. And it’s
> amazing how, in that state, I am better able to act on good ethics and self-
> care and just spend less. If our jobs and commutes weren’t wringing us
> emotionally dry on a daily basis, we’d be much more ethical consumers,
> maybe?”

> This is where pandemic-induced reductions in spending, decadelong resentment
> over income inequality, the resurgent progressive and labor movements,
> sustained millennial/Gen X burnout and precarity, and burgeoning Gen Z
> idealism collide. What if we decided that things didn’t have to be the way
> they were before all of this happened? Part of that shift would involve
> taxing the rich and disarticulating healthcare from employment; it would
> involve forming and protecting unions and focusing on reimplementing
> regulatory systems, decentralizing production, and restoring the supply
> chain. And it could also mean disabusing ourselves of the idea that buying
> things is a solution to our problems.

> “I don’t want to return to a choice of unemployment versus burnout,”
> Natalie, who’s 36 and has been searching for a job since January, told me.
> “I want just enough of an income and just enough health insurance that I
> don’t have to check my bank account on a daily basis. I just want to be
> comfortable and content.

“I don’t know that there are any answers to this,” she said. “I just don’t
want to return to the world as it was.” ●

