Oh, I remember the stories from my grandparents. They all lived in small houses and got along fine on very little. In fact, they grew and canned a lot of their own food. They were Depression era people, so they were used to doing without a lot of stuff because when they were young and of reproductive age, they had almost nothing during the Depression anyway. They were used to not having the money to buy extra disposable things. They were forced to be frugal so long it was considered normal. What changed was when our soldiers came back from WWII, married and had kids. Lots and lots of kids. The rise of the new middle class. They wanted things better than what their parents had because they remembered the hardship and the lack of income. So the economy began to cater to that new desire and because those returning soldiers were able to obtain good jobs and make good money after the war, the economy grew. We won after all. Spirits were high, testosterone was flowing and the Depression was history. Time to live and splurge a little. They now had enough extra cash left over to spend on "things", stuff not necessary for just surviving. All this new found decadence was considered abnormal to the Depression generation because I remember my grandparents complaining about the younger generation in the 1960's having and wanting too much stuff and bigger and bigger houses.Lothar wrote:I think it's easy to blame marketers, but at the same time, we have to blame everyday people. It's not like we never had a chance to hear grandparents or other relatives who lived through economic bad times say "you should save money". It's not like we never hear banks encourage savings or retirement planning. It's just that we as a society choose to listen more to the "buy the maximum you qualify for" type of messaging instead of the "buy what actually makes sense for you" messaging.
So I guess when you think about it, you can blame the WWII and Boomer generations for wanting more than their Depression era parents and grandparents had. They'd already lived with almost nothing, so having more was desirable, like a new drug habit that needed feeding. It didn't take long for the marketeers to see the gold mine just waiting to be tapped. Wanting more and more things and bigger houses and the economic growth that it would supply that desire became the new normal. The problem we have is now that it keeps feeding on itself like a growing monster. THAT'S where I blame the marketeers and corporations. When they HAVE to keep that monster alive or else the economy totally collapses. The other problem is human nature. We have to learn frugality. Wanting more comes naturally. Maybe that's what's needed for this country Lothar, another Great Depression, because until people are actually forced to be without, they will continue to keep wanting more.
By the way Lothar, I do agree with you that people want too much stuff and bigger and bigger houses today. When we moved to our present location, we built a small ranch-style single story house, about 1900 square feet of living space, which is actually still big for just 2 people. Trouble is, we've accumulated lots of stuff over the years. So we built a unfinished basement underneath that footprint, but it's only used for utilities, storage and hobbies. Even that area is too much of a temptation to store more damn stuff. Both of us are starting to find that we can do without a lot of the stuff that we've accumulated over the years. Going lean is starting to have a big appeal and I think we're going to sell much of our stored stuff and make life smaller and simpler. I'm getting too damned tired to deal with all of it anyway. Most of it is never used anyway. On the good side, some of that stuff is old and collectible and worth money, so I won't have any trouble selling it to others who want more stuff.
Actually, Sony's first little transistor radio was too big to fit in people's shirt pockets. Regency's did. It didn't sell well because of that little small detail. But they learned quickly from that mistake, made the change and made history. Cheap sells, in quantity, if the product fits what the market desires. Americans now craved lots of cheap stuff, so they hit the sweet spot in history. The Japanese were the first to sell, and be blamed for, dirt cheap and chintzy "everything", especially electronic gadgets and plastic junk. That's why they put Regency out of business, their comparable product was cheaper and they could out produce them in quantity and at a lower price with cheaper labor. Sadly, the Japanese had their little renaissance when they moved from high volume cheap to high volume quality and have now had to move back to high volume cheap to compete globally, all because of the Chinese and increasing consumer demand. Americans want too much stuff and don't care about the quality as long as the price is right.Spidey wrote:Funny you should mention the transistor radio tc, that product produced by Sony (after the Regency) was on the vanguard of cheap imported products.
Forget about “built today with modern electronics and cheap foreign labor,” because that is exactly what was going on at the time.
