Page 16 - Book5E

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At the time of writing, America once again faces a financial crisis as congressional leaders rush to come up with a strategy to bail the U.S. economy out. Americans face tough economic times and will need to turn back to basics once again as in times past.
All of America's recessions have had some things in common. Companies slow production, and people lose jobs. In general, reces- sions are hardest on the working class, particularly in manufacturing areas. Some people do manage to escape with few losses. People with lots of cash and not much debt could even prosper. During the Great Depression, some people drove Cadillacs and retained their mansions.
Since the Great Depression, Social Security, unemployment insurance, Medicaid, and Medicare have been put in place so that in the recession of the 1970s, few people actually went hungry. But many Americans still got out their sewing machines, baked from scratch, and planted vegetable gardens.
The way people buy has changed radically since the Great Depression. Rather than buying commodities as provisions for one’s or one’s family’s physical needs, people are making pur- chases of items more and more as a way of expressing their personal identity. Chances are, you can still remember a time when your parents saved the holiday wrapping paper for a second use, darned the holes in your socks, and washed and rewashed plastic containers for refrigerator storage instead of purchasing expensive Tupperware. Times have changed. Items purchased today seem to be more disposable. If something breaks down, instead of repairing it, we replace it. Instead of taking care of what we have, we figure we can replace it with something newer, more fashionable, or the latest technology.
Shopping has become a major leisure and lifestyle activity, which has cultivated the increasing importance and frequency of unplanned, non-necessity purchases. Indeed, impulse buying now constitutes a substantial segment of purchasing behavior. Not surprisingly, impulse
Why We Spend