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Originally Posted by pbear19
Ok, if I seem to be contradicting myself, let me try it this way:
1. Culturally, Americans want lots of stuff we don’t need.
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This is subjective, but I'll acquiesce for the purposes of discussion. Just for the record, I don't really know what this means or why it's important to the current credit crisis, which is based purely on trading debt (which is quite tangible).
Quote:
Originally Posted by pbear19
2. We want those copious amounts of unnecessary things to come cheaply, because we are bargain shoppers at heart and like to feel good about the low price we paid for the massive amounts of stuff we don’t need in the first place.
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I completely disagree with this premise.
Remember that a Lexis is just a Toyota with nicer paneling - if anything, Americans like to feel good about paying out the ass for a watch, boat, car, whatever . . . this is nearly antithetical to your main point, in my opinion. How do you reconcile this belief with the ARM movement toward massive, useless houses for way too much money?
Quote:
Originally Posted by pbear19
3. Our demand for vast quantities of cheap unnecessary stuff feeds into the supply of easy credit.
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False dilemma.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pbear19
4. With the easy credit we proceed to buy vast quantities of cheap unnecessary stuff.
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Begging the question.
I'll leave the rest, because I completely agree with your viewpoint, just not your conclusion. I get where you're coming from, to a point, but I think your premises are flawed. People wanted more, more, more - that's not uniquely American. If you want proof, look at the impending hit to foreign markets.
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