1. The Economy of the American Consumer
Position Paper
Position
The purpose of this exploration is to identify the environment of the American consumer – based
on the current economic situation as a platform – along emotional, attitudinal and behavioral axis.
Americans are concerned with the current economic climate
We don’t yet have an official declaration that a recession has begun. We do however, have
several measures that speak to the state of the US economic climate - on terms of labor,
consumer spending in retail sales, the housing and credit markets, costs of goods and services,
imports & exports, and other factors - and that indicate a challenged environment. (1)
This is an atmosphere that fuels the fears, anxieties and concerns of the American consumer,
even though the US have experienced other economic challenges – specific to the last half of the
th
20 century - starting with the jolting inflation-based recession of the 1970s to the most recent
official recession taking place in 2001, and with other downturns and recessions occurring in
between in 1986, 1990/91 and 1995. (2)
The May 2008 Conference Board report (a significant indicator of consumer sentiment) showed a
fifth consecutive month decline of its consumer confidence index, and the lowest rating since
October 1992, when the economy was coming out of a recession. (3) A March 2008 report by the
group showed Americans “feel worse now about the economy’s prospects than at any time since
1973, (the last time) Americans struggled with soaring oil prices and runaway inflation.” (4)
Further, the May 2008 Index of Consumer Sentiment compiled by The University of Michigan and
Reuters reported consumer confidence falling to its lowest level since June 1980. The report
attributes the decline to surging food and fuel prices, falling home prices, shrinking employment,
smaller income gains rising credit standards, and record levels of outstanding debt. The report
further notes that nine-in-ten consumers thought the economy was in recession in May. (5)
In terms of debt, by 2007, Americans owed over $937B in credit card debt. According to
the Federal Reserve’s measure of burdensome debt, in 2004 the typical family spent
more than 18 percent of its income on debt payments, the largest share since the Fed
started collecting these data. Moreover, the proportion of families with debt-service
payments exceeding 40 percent of their income rose to 12.2 percent in 2004. Consumer
loan delinquencies also rose during this period. (6)
A recent report from The Mortgage Bankers Association shows 1 in 11 American mortgages in
foreclosure or past due, and that the rate of new foreclosures and past-due payments in 2008 Q1
rose to their highest level since 1979, when the group first began collecting the data. (7)
National sentiment is uneasy and concerned. (8) Americans are being challenged. (9)
“The gloom among consumers appeared widespread. A quarter of those
surveyed said that business conditions would worsen in the next six months, and
nearly a third said the economy would have fewer jobs. Fewer Americans plan to
purchase big-ticket items like refrigerators, vehicles and television sets, and more
than half said that jobs were currently ‘not so plentiful.’” (10)
According to Bernard Baumohl of the Economic Outlook Group, the report “signals a great deal of
concern and anxiety and uncertainty among consumers. Add that to the fact that the job market
has weakened dramatically, and incomes haven’t been rising very much — certainly below the
pace of inflation — and you really have the ingredients of a significant cutback of consumer
spending.” (11)
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2. A snapshot of the current US economy
Sales of goods and services make up more than two-thirds of US gross domestic product, so a
significant spending slowdown “can speed the onset of a recession or make a downturn even
worse.” (12)
Definitions as to whether the condition is a downturn or a recession vary according to group.
A common definition of a recession is at least two consecutive quarters of negative Gross
Domestic Product (GDP). However, the National Bureau of Economic Research, a nonprofit
group that is charged with officially defining when a recession begins and ends – defines a
recession as a period of ‘significant decline in economic activity across GDP, income,
employment and retail sales that lasts more than a few months.’ (13)
According to Kevin Phillips, former aide to Richard Nixon, today’s challenged economic
environment, at this point, most closely resembles the recession of the 1970s – a straightforward
‘price surge.’ (14) The Consumer Price Index of April 2008 shows a substantial increase over the
past year in the costs of energy and food, respectively at 15.9% and 5.1%. (15)
The challenge, though, lies in that the current landscape shows real hourly wages for “most
workers have risen only 1% since 1979, even as those workers' productivity has increased by
60%. (16) Conversely, consumer expenditures overall have risen by 6.9% and 4.3% respectively
in the years 2005 and 2006 alone (17) – with particular emphasis in the areas of housing, food,
and transportation.
“Higher prices have had a devastating impact. Consumers are painfully aware
that their living standards are shrinking under the weight of higher food and fuel
prices and see little hope for improvement any time soon,” according to Richard
Curtin, the Director of the Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers.
“Buying plans for vehicles and household durables, such as furniture, appliances,
and home electronics, were the least favorable since the early 1980's. ‘When
asked to explain their views, consumers said that they favored the postponement
of purchases given their uncertainty about their future income and job prospects
as well as concerns about the future course of gas and food prices,’ Curtin
added.” (18)
We buy, therefore we are.
In the United States, as in other countries, consumption is a measure of how we define ourselves.
We as people express ourselves with the materials we consume - clothes we wear, food we eat -
staying in/dining out - the choices we make in cars, where we live. (19)
American-style consumption sets itself apart resting on two fundamental principles – a
combination of ideals - rights of common man as set forth in the Declaration of Independence -
and resources - the bounty of natural resources & riches as exemplified in the Manifest Destiny
concept declared by the Jeffersonian Democrats of the 1840s. (20)
From a historical perspective, liberty gave the individual a chance to think, act, venture for self.
This was a new ideal, a new platform for operation and thus, expression, communication. This
new ideal was both powered by, and later amplified through, the collection of resources found
within in the land.
Culturally, this combination sets the tone for the American consumer – self and the frontier - as
author Neal Thompson describes pioneering Benny Parks, in Driving with the Devil:
“born in Virginia, son of Revolutionary War soldier. The family had come from
Scotland and northern Ireland, and like many antiauthority Scots, Irish, and
hybrid Scots-Irish of the 1700s and 1800s, Parks required some distance from
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3. the federal government in Washington and the puritans of the Northeast. When
he was old enough, he left home, traveling farther south along the Philadelphia
Wagon Road into western North Carolina, accompanied by a slave named Julius
Caesar, a gift from his father. Later, in search of even more remove, Parks and
Caesar relocated to the red-dirt hills of North Georgia, to live among the
Cherokee Indians.
“Outsiders considered the isolated Appalachian mountain people to be ‘a fierce
and uncouth race of men.’ Living incomprehensibly at the very edge of American
civilization, with wild Indians as neighbors, (they) were viewed as ‘ignorant,
mean, worthless, beggarly Irish Presbyterians, the scum of the Earth.’ But Parks
found his neighbors in and around the towns of Dawsonville and Dahlonega
(Cherokee for ‘golden color’) to be just like him: proudly self-sufficient,
uneducated yet bold, living off the land, distrustful of outsiders and authority, and
crazy for deer hunting.” (21)
As the United States expanded westward, so to did the notion of American consumption.
Seemingly endless supply of resources afforded and enabled Americans greater access to goods
– amplified consumption helping Americans express themselves.
It was turn-of-the-century, when American sociologist and economist Thorsten Veblen, who
studied under laissez-faire economist William Graham Sumner at Yale, coined the term
‘conspicuous consumption’ in his The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) to describe (as within)
“the most advantaged members of society – those affluent enough to constitute a leisure class
whose conspicuous consumption functions as a continuous advertisement of their success.” (22)
However, it wasn’t until the economic expansion of the 1950s postwar era, when amplified, or
conspicuous, consumption reached the common American and established the identity of today’s
st
21 century American consumer. Author Sallie Tisdale writes in The Best Thing I ever Tasted of
the time of:
“undeniable expansion and exposure... Millions of people were retreating into
ranch houses and shopping malls. The postwar cycle of increased economic
opportunity meant ever more new products and more pressure to buy them –
which meant one needed to work more to get the money to buy them, which
increased the need for processed and convenient (goods), which were more
expensive – and so on in a cycle of men and women working. (23)
This was also, however, an American commercial evolution writes Nikil Saval in the literary piece
Birth of the Office (24)
“The postwar explosion of office work, in the newly great corporations of America
– IBM, GE, Whirlpool – had created legions of employees with good benefits,
relatively short working hours and abundant vacations. New offices were being
built at astonishing rates. In New York, a onetime capital of manufacturing where
many companies began to position their corporate headquarters, white-collar
workers outnumbered blue-collar workers two to one by the end of the 1960s.” In
America’s ‘swiftly suburbanizing expanses,’ companies structured low, boxy
buildings which could in turn be surrounded by box-shaped parking lots that
could collect employees from an impressive geographic radius.” (25)
This economic growth and stability aligned perfectly with the introduction of ‘modern’
advertising techniques described by historian TJ Jackson Lears to drive the psyche of
st
21 century American consumer to express through excess.
“Modern advertising helped create an atmosphere of personalized hopes and
fears connected directly to what one bought, used, and owned. Modern
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4. advertisers told the consumer quite bluntly that ‘social ostracism and shame were
the prices for failure to use the product.’ Advertising began also to speak to
inarticulate longings and inner hungers. Consumption ceased to be a simple
matter of survival or status, and gradually took on meaning relevant to individual
identity. (26)
(For Americans) “excess of one kind or another is clearly a marker of how we
(are) now – excessive indulgence, excessive denial. Our copious appetite was
so unusual in the worldly scheme that virtually every foreign visitor who wrote
about American (consumption habits - eating in this case) expressed
amazement, shock, and even disgust at the quantity of food consumed and the
waste left behind after every meal. Americans, however, were wont to brag
about the same thing.” (27)
Writes essayist Wendell Berry, “Our national faith so far has been: ‘There’s always more.’ In
keeping with our unrestrained consumptiveness, the commonly accepted basis of our economy is
the supposed possibility of limitless growth, limitless wants, limitless natural resources, limitless
energy, and limitless debt.” (28)
“Americans have re-written economics,” argues economist Dr. Kurt Richenbacher in a 2005 white
paper. “The normal economic condition for a developed industrial country is to have an export
surplus, and this surplus becomes the basis of its capital formation – basic macroeconomics.”
The 1980s, though, saw American national policy diving deeply into a deficit-spending economy,
prompting “Americans (to) just borrow and consume.” (29)
A bruised psyche – a changed identity
The US have become a grossly consumer nation used to, for the past quarter century in
particular, spending more than it earns. The foundation for this behavior lies along historical and
cultural factors. Historically, close to heart is the concept of Expansion – a core American
economic policy taking root with the Louisiana Purchase. Expansion gives the American
consumer the right to believe that there will always be more (30) Culturally, Americans are strong
action-takers. Conversely, debate as a cultural pillar possesses less value. Susan Jacoby
reasons in The Age of American Unreason an “absence of curiosity about other points of view.”
Thus, when directed – Americans mobilize. When prescribed a national economic policy of
borrowing and spending over the past quarter century as a means to fuel the economy,
Americans have obliged by borrowing and spending. (31) Together, these are the two elements
that construct the psyche of the American consumer.
The particular challenge today for the American consumer is as simple as the realization of
current economic situation: an uncomfortable mix of 1) stagnant wages, 2) higher cost of goods,
particularly transportation and food, and 3) devaluation of the housing market, against which
many Americans borrowed to fuel their amplified consumption behavior.
The concept strikes directly at the fundamental pillars of the American consumption psyche: rising
cost of goods signals a limitation of resources, while the slumping housing market indicates a
limitation to credit access.
The identity, then, of the American consumer as exhibited through ‘conspicuous consumption’
has clearly been impacted – and our national identity is now shifting. The newfound identity of
the American consumer is comprised of the balance between an increase in conservation and (an
almost requisite) ease in consumption. (32) Our new national identity is pointing to a return to
basics, such as in wartime, which also exhibited an effort of national unity – a building of the
national psyche* - in paying off debt, saving money when and where possible, and delaying big-
ticket purchases. (*33)
“Consumers have become more cautious spenders and are determined to
rebuild their reserve funds. ‘For consumers to increase their savings as well as
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5. cope with the higher costs of food and fuel will require a prolonged shift in
budgets away from discretionary spending.’” (34)
New American Values
Writer James Truslow Adams coined the term the American Dream in 1931 as “that dream of a
land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each
according to ability or achievement.” (35)
2008 Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama in a May, 2008 Meet The Press
appearance described his perspective of how Americans are viewing The American Dream in
light of the stressed economy: (36)
“The people of Indiana and North Carolina (with upcoming primaries at the time)
are looking for right now what they believe is - that the values that have built this
country, the belief that hard work is rewarded, that you can raise a family and
have healthcare, buy a home, retire with dignity and respect. (They believe) that
those things feel like they are slipping away.” (37)
To add, a 2007 DYG Scan reports nearly 6 in 10 (59%) Americans think there are more obstacles
to achieving the ‘American Dream’ than there used to be, and just above 6 in 10 (61%) think
“more and more, America is becoming a have and have-not society” – that’s an 11% increase
from the previous year alone. (38)
Consumption as value today for many Americans is charged with pragmatic, rationally-driven
decision making, and being exhibited with examples as drastic (for the US) as frontier-style
attitudes and consumption behavior. An ongoing CNN Money report illustrates the adjustments
consumers are making:
“Christina Pond of Arlington, Texas, makes her own detergent. Pond, 26, a stay-
at-home mom with an 8-month old daughter, does four loads of laundry every
other day. ‘Detergent is very expensive, so I make my own,’ she said. She
grates natural soap, boils it, adds Borax, baking soda and essential oils, and lets
it cool overnight. ‘I make five gallons at a time,’ she said. Her husband is a
bartender, and the rising cost of living is making it difficult to make ends meet. ‘I
am constantly trying to find ways to cut corners,’ she said. To that end, Pond has
planted her own herb garden. She buys eggs at the local feed store and pays
$4.50 for 20 eggs. She purees vegetables and fruits into home-made baby food.
Additional examples of changed consumer behavior include dining out less frequently,
breastfeeding instead of buying formula, using leftovers to stretch the week’s meals,
using coupons more frequently, and trading down to generic products from pricier name
brand and organic foods and beverages.
“Amanda Richardson of Richmond, Va. has given way to ‘just plain old store
milk,’ because organic milk, tends to be pricier. Richardson, who's in her late
30s, works in cancer research. Her husband is a self-employed carpenter who's
struggling to find new business. "We're a typical middle-income family," she said.
"If we did not carry foolish debt, we would be OK. But with our debt burden,
combined with paying for two children in day care, there is nothing left over at the
end of the month." For cost-saving reasons, Richardson has added less-
expensive rice-and-beans to the family's weekly menu, and has all but eliminated
red meat. Beyond these cutbacks, if money still is especially tight, Richardson
skips on purchases for herself such as skim milk and her favorite cereal. ‘Being
a mother, you want to cut back on things for yourself first before you cut back for
the family,’ said Richardson. The food price squeeze has taught her one more
important lesson. "Before we were incredibly wasteful. We'd let food go bad. I
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6. am more conscientious now. If prices go back down, I won't return to my wasteful
ways."
In terms of healthcare, where about 16% of Americans are already going without medical
insurance, the economic situation simply amplifies the concern for the healthcare cost. (39)
Blogger Delagar responding to a New York Times David Brooks column suggesting Americans
shift their values towards debt spending and instead look for opportunities to practice thrift writes:
(40)
“’Living within my means,’ would be nice, except that means doing without the
medication my husband needs for his diabetes and I need for my blood pressure
and not taking the kid to the walk-in clinic when she has an ear ache (we can’t go
to our PCP, because that clinic cut us off two months ago, when the amount we
owed them—after what the health insurance was paying, because yes, we do
have health insurance—topped three thousand dollars)—but hey, Brooks
reckons we should just tighten our belts. 6/10 at 1:08pm (41 )
In the area of transportation, American consumer behavior corresponds directly to the rise in
gasoline prices with both a step for conservation* and an increase in the purchase of smaller,
more fuel-efficient vehicles. General Motors Chairman and CEO Rich Wagoner, announced in
June the company will be closing four truck manufacturing plants and considering a sale of its
‘gas-guzzling’ Hummer brand. “These (gas) prices are changing consumer behavior and
changing it rapidly. We don’t believe it’s a spike or a temporary shift. We believe it is
permanent,” Wagoner reported at the company’s annual meeting. (42)
Change as a positive
Thus, we see value for the American consumer today is pragmatic and real – savings; rebuilding
reserve funds. Undoubtedly though, value for the American consumer is also emotional - there’s
a social value in the (re-)building of the national psyche. It’s an effort that reports to both social
and functional values, and is being instituted through environmentalism, conservation and
community as operational anchors.
Purchasing hybrid vehicles is one example where Americans’ functional shift in behavior ties
together with their emotional value for contributing to the status of the country.
The shift to purchase smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles is a pragmatic, functional response by
the American consumer to the higher cost of gasoline. Cambridge Energy Research Associates
(CERA) report sales of pickup trucks, minivans and sport utility vehicles fell below 50% of new
passenger vehicle sales for the first time since 2001, while sales of hybrid vehicle sales increased
by more than one-third from 2006 to 2007. Americans, in fact, bought more Toyota Prius hybrids
last year than they did Ford Explorers, which was the best selling sport utility vehicle in the
country for more than a decade. CERA report author Samantha Gross notes:
“The impact of this shift towards greater fuel efficiency is only beginning to be
felt. The change is evident in the strategies of car makers and in the new focus
on electric batteries. Stricter government efficiency standards, set to begin in
2011, will continue the trend. With climate change concerns now, it’s very likely
that fuel efficiency will be at the forefront for the foreseeable future, and it’s
unlikely we will go back to not caring about fuel efficiency the way we did in the
late 1980s.”
(43)
J.D. Power & Associates reports four of the current top 10 fastest-selling vehicles are hybrids, led
by the Toyota Prius, which sells within four days of arriving at the dealer - compared to an
industry average time to sale of 57 days. (44)
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7. Aside the fuel economy benefits, hybrid vehicles produce significantly fewer emissions than
traditional cars. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) describes driving a car as the
single highest pollutant most Americans produce. US Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions – 25% of
which come from cars and trucks* – are one of the main greenhouse gases, and linked with
strong evidence of causing climate change. The Union of Concerned Scientists argue: (*45)
“The more Americans can do to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide being
produced, the more we can influence a halt in climate change which will
ultimately affect everyone the world over. The lowering of car emissions for more
(Americans) is a way that a significant reduction in their own carbon footprint can
be made. In addition, American consumers would save billions of dollars on
gasoline, and we would reduce our dependence on foreign oil. By putting energy
efficiency, renewable energy, and vehicle technology solutions in place at the
federal level, we can reduce our contribution to global warming while creating a
stronger, healthier, and more secure nation.”
American consumers are beginning to move along this environmental paradigm. “I think they’re
(hybrids) awesome. If you’re for the environment, of course it’s great. It’s less pollution, less
dependency on foreign oil,” notes a California study respondent from a PBS POV Border/
Environment report. (46)
In fact, the state of California, with the largest vehicle market in the country, has taken a
leadership role on informing the public of the greenhouse-gas emissions tied to new vehicles.
The state has revised the Environmental Performance label applied to new cars, requiring all
2009 model-year cars to display a “Global Warming Score.” The new rating will reflect the
emissions of greenhouse gases from the vehicle’s operation and the production of fuel required to
power it. “Consumer choice is an especially powerful tool in our fight against climate change,”
said Mary Nichols, chair of the California Air Resources Board. (47)
Further, Newsweek reported the environment has “emerged as a leading issue in this (year’s)
election cycle,” with 30% of American voters saying they ‘would take a candidate’s green
credentials into account’ – nearly three times as many as in 2005 when the figure only registered
11%. (48)
"It was clear starting all the way back in Iowa and New Hampshire that this
campaign would be much more about the environment," says Dave Willett, a
spokesman for the Sierra Club. "The questions weren't 'Do you think global
warming is happening?' but 'How are you going to deal with it, what's your
approach?'" Willett presumably means questions from citizens. Climate-change
skeptics and deniers sometimes charge that the threat of global warming is a
conspiracy kept alive by the media, but the reality seems rather different. The
League of Conservation Voters tracks how often candidates are asked about
environmental issues in televised debates and interviews, and the current tally
shows that of 3,231 questions by the leading political reporters from five
networks, exactly eight concerned global warming.
The 2007 DYG Scan report helps illustrate Americans’ forward perspective towards the
environment and, correspondingly, conservation as deeper, national social values. The report
indicates 68% of Americans are ‘very concerned’ about the environment, with 79% of Americans
engaged in recycling, and 70% lowering their personal energy consumption, such as buying
energy efficient appliances or using less electricity. Another 43% are driving less, carpooling or
altogether switching to public transportation. Though only 9% of American consumers reported
purchasing a hybrid or alternative fuel vehicle, another 38% thought about it. Most telling is the
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8. figure indicating 39% of Americans actively shopped for products for social, political, or
environmental reasons – up 18% from the previous year. (49)
Increasingly, Americans are looking at their homes as a foundation to practice the values of
conservation and environmentalism. McGraw Hill Construction reports as much as 20% of new
construction will be green by 2012 and that the industry has reached a ‘tipping point’ for builders
going green. The report cites quality, energy cost savings and ‘doing the right thing/improving
quality of life’ as the most important reasons for building green. (50)
While these green-building initiatives certainly serve functional, pragmatic values in terms of
energy cost savings and reducing environmental impact, they also line up to serve a deeper
social value in the building of the communities, or social tribes, interested in impacting – positively
- the course of the country’s current psyche.
“I saw some people buying regular paint yesterday, and I just thought, “We can
do better!” Resources ARE coming online to help. Among my favorites are green
building resource centers and green retailers. I also happen to run a start-up
green building community/web site called Rate It Green (www.rateitgreen.com).
We also publish a guide to green building information sources called Green
Building 101. If we all share what we know, both green residences and
commercial spaces will be greener more quickly! I personally believe that every
effort in a green direction helps - and I can help! –Allison, Rate It Green
www.rateitgreen.com. Comment by Allison Friedman - May 19, 2008 at 12:23 pm
“Changing the way we live and work and build is a long, slow, messy process,
and impatience, perfectionism, and guilt can hinder progress, not to mention PR.
I try to explain to people that addressing the global climate crisis (which is what
building green is doing, after all) needs to be done at once by three key players:
citizens, private industry, and government/institutions. These different
populations have different, equally important to-do lists, and all share
responsibility for action. Comment by susan besson - May 19, 2008 at 4:38 pm
(51)
Green for All is organization aimed entirely at building a national social value of uplift while based
on the conservation, environmental and community building values that comprise the green
economy. Founder Van Jones describes the group’s mission to Newsweek: (52)
“Right now we have a lot of people in the United States who don’t have jobs, they
need work - and we have all this work that needs to be done. We want to
weatherize buildings, put up solar panels, build wind farms, so we can beat
global warming and respect the earth. If we’re smart about it we can connect the
people who most need work to the work that most needs to be done. So, that is
the agenda – to create green pathways out of poverty into prosperity. Get people
middle class jobs.
“If Dr. Martin Luther King were here, he would say we need to renew this dream.
A Dr. King 2.0 dream in an ecological age would say let’s protect the people and
the planet. We want equal protection in an ecological age - He’d say we want
equal opportunity to the good things that are coming. And good things are
coming to this country – solar power is coming, wind power is coming, green
construction is coming. Let’s have equal opportunity to that for these children.
That is the new dream. Fight pollution and poverty at the same time. Dr. King
linked issues in his day. For him it was civil rights and peace and anti-poverty.
For us, it’s social uplift and environmentalism.
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9. Community-building is a national desire – which links to other periods of national duress, from the
Depression and WWII to the 1970’s oil embargo and the Iranian Hostage Crisis. DYG Scan
reports two-thirds of Americans say it’s a shame our society has lost its sense of community. (53)
Outlook
Resembling the election years of 1980 and 1992, the collective American spirit wants change,
and solutions to the current economic situation. (54) At this juncture, the opportunity to engage
with the American consumer is based on providing relevant and emotional examples of:
• collectivism
• a spirit of development
• growth
• optimism towards the future
Americans are fully engaged with the challenges of the current economic downturn. Clearly, the
American consumer is looking for solutions that provide immediate pragmatic value in terms of
cost savings. The American consumer is also, however, seeking a deeper social and emotional
value of rebuilding the bruised national psyche.
Technology and innovation, which are both already strong cultural and economic pillars of
American society, have an opportunity to play an even larger role in rebuilding the nation’s social
value.
Pragmatically, Americans can employ technology today to maximize value in terms of cost
savings. Further, however, Americans will look towards technology and innovation to deliver new
thinking, and new capabilities that can again recast the United States as the leader in the global
economy, and owning of a recharged social value that affords its citizens confidence, security and
stability.
References:
1, 13, 16) Wall Street Journal, 5.14.08
2) Philips, Numbers Racket, Harpers 5.08
3) The Conference Board, 5.27.08
4, 10-12) New York Times 3.26.08 – Conference Board source
5) Surveys of Consumers, UMich/Reuters 5.08
6) Whitehead, A Nation in Debt, The American Interest Magazine
7) Bajaj, NYT 6.6.08
8) Pew Research Center
9, 32) CNN Money 4.21.08
14) Philips Numbers Racket, Harpers 5.08
15, 17) Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI 4.08
18) Surveys of Consumers, UMich/Reuters 5.08
19) Stockholm Brats, Ostberg, Cova; Consumer Tribes
20, 28, 30) Esquire 6/7.08; Berry Harpers 5.08
21) Thompson p.12
22) Jacoby p.76
23) Tisdale p.121-122
24) N+1, Winter.08
25) Saval, N+1 p.109
26) Tisdale p.92
27) Tisdale p.40
29) US Consumer Spending, Dr. Kurt Richenbacher, 2005
31,33) Whitehead, A Nation in Debt, The American Interest Magazine
34) Curtain, Rueters/UMich, USA Today 3.30.08
35) The Epic of America
36,37) NBC 5.4.08
38, 49, 53) DYG Scan 2007
2/11/2012, 9
10. 39) National Coalition on Health Care, NCHC.org
40) NYT 6.10.08
41) http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/the_cascade
42) WSJ 6.4.08, USAToday 6.9.08; *answers.yahoo.com
43) Drivers Turn the Corner in the United States, Cambridge Energy Research Associates
6.19.08, NYT 6.19.08
44) JDPower, NYT 6.20.08
45) http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/
46) http://www.pbs.org/pov/borders/2004/air/air_hybrid_p2.html
47) California Environmental Protection Agency http://www.hybridcars.com/incentives-
laws/california-mandates-display-global-warming-score-new-vehicles-0702.html)
48) Zogby - http://www.newsweek.com/id/130624
50) WSJ, 5.17.08, McGraw Hill Construction 5.12.08
51) http://blogs.wsj.com/developments/2008/05/19/five-easy-ways-to-green-your-next-
remodel/?mod=WSJBlog
52) Newsweek 4.4.08
54) Krugman, NY Times 6.30.08
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