O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times? — Jesus, Matthew 16:3
Americans are adroit at cloistering their collective conscience from the weighty issues of the day. Over the past few decades, we’ve trained our media to ignore any situation that requires knowledge of another countries’ history or mores, complex or abstract thinking, and a viable attention span. It’s not that we don’t care about wars, massacres, extreme poverty, human rights violations, and environmental catastrophe. Quite simply, it’s that we don’t understand.
Now the media is bandying buzzwords like financial crisis, mortgage meltdown, and credit crunch. Americans want to ignore the grave news about unemployment, stock market volatility, foreclosures, and bankruptcies, but the media is just being incessant with all this downer news about the economic apocalypse. Stark headlines like “Citigroup to cut 50000 jobs” really saps consumeristic desire.
So America vows to cutback on unnecessary spending, to hunker down and bring their epic credit-funded shopping spree to an end. The retail stores are nervous, cagey, desperate. Suddenly the American consumer has coyly refused to open her wallet for the retail stores to plunge into, like they have so many times in the past. And now, of all times, with the Christmas shopping season fast approaching!
But the retail stores are well-versed in the American mindset. Americans may no longer be able to spend money that they don’t have, but they can spend the money that they were planning to… wait, what’s that word? Oh yes, save. You know, for rainy days, for emergencies. Like… Blu-ray disc players for $120, GPS systems for $97, pearl necklaces for $49, George Foreman grilles for $30, and an Xbox 360 for $300. Prices like these are emergencies, because the prices could go back up at any moment.
Only American shoppers can ignore the myriad economic pressures, head en masse to the stores, and spend $10.6 billion, 3% more than last year. Only American shoppers can rationalize that, by spending money on non-essential crap, they’re actually saving money. Only American shoppers can stampede in a Wal-Mart. I underestimated you, America, but maybe it’s not that you don’t care about the financial crisis. It’s that you don’t understand.
