If Life is So Awful Today, Why Do So Many College Students Own Cellphones, iPods and Digital TVs?
Submitted by CARPE DIEM
A few weeks ago I gave a talk on the state of the economy to a group of college students — almost all Barack Obama enthusiasts — who were griping about how downright awful things are in America today. As they sipped their Starbucks lattes and adjusted their designer sunglasses, they recited their grievances: The country is awash in debt “that we will have to pay off”; the middle class in shrinking; the polar ice caps are melting; and college is too expensive.
I’ve been speaking to groups like this one for more than 20 years, but I have never confronted such universal pessimism from a young audience. Its members acted as if the hardships of modern life are making it nearly impossible for them to get out of bed in the morning. So I conducted a survey of these grim youngsters. How many of you, I asked, own a laptop? A cellphone? An iPod, a DVD player, a flat-screen digital TV? To every question somewhere between two-thirds and all of the hands in the room rose. But they didn’t even get my point. “Well, duh,” one of them scoffed, “who doesn’t have an iPod these days?” I was way too embarrassed to tell them that I, for one, don’t. They thought that living without these products would be like going back to prehistoric times.
As late as 1970, air conditioning, color TVs, washing machines, dryers and microwaves were considered luxuries. Today the vast majority of even poor families have these things in their homes. Almost one in three “poor” families has not one but at least two cars.
From Stephen Moore’s WSJ commentary “The Bare Necessities: A Generation Tries to Imagine Life Without iPods”
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October 4th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Well put!
It’s amazing the sense of entitlement we have in our culture.
The other day, I had a friend try to explain to me about how awful it is that so many are falling below the “poverty line” nowadays, and I then tried to explain to her that people are considered “poor” in this culture who live like KINGS AND QUEENS compared to people in other countries who have similar skills & education.
In our culture, almost everyone has something to eat… worst case scenario, there is welfare/food banks.
You can even buy a perfectly good iPod for $10.00 from a crackhead in any major city if you really want one. The person it got stolen from just goes out and buys a new one, and life goes on. Cops would laugh at you if you called them about a stolen iPod.
We have lost respect for material goods, while at the same time we are worshiping material wealth. It seems contradictory, but that’s how I see it.
I like to ask people who whine about our standard of living going down:
“What if everyone in the world wanted your standard of living?”
The answer is obvious: global environmental devastation. In fact, the concept of such conspicuous consumption for the world’s 6 billion or however many there are of us is completely unthinkable anyway. There isn’t enough.
There is a natural equalization going on right now I think. It’s like physics. This artificial bubble of conspicuous consumption is about to burst. People all over the world who are *rich* will have iPods; poor people in our culture will soon not be able to afford iPods.
It’s not natural anyway, for average people to enjoy the luxuries that we do.
In reality (in a realistic economy), you would/should have to work your BUTT off if you want the kind of sexy little gadgets that these college students think it is their God-given right as first-worlders to enjoy even though they are “poor” or “broke”.
We’ll see major inflation here soon, and those iPods will be for the super-rich only.