[lbo-talk] let the rich spend!

[Leigh Meyers]

Doug Henwood wrote:
> <http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060304/ap_on_bi_ge/wall___main>
>
> [...]
>
> Another argument is that the wealthiest 20 percent of American 
> families account for roughly 40 percent of consumer spending, spending 
> roughly 4.5 times as much as the lowest 20 percent, something 
> Citigroup's chief U.S. equities strategist Tobias M. Levkovich pointed 
> out in a recent report. The implication: This group isn't going to run 
> out of money anytime soon. If a healthy economy depends on the 
> wealthiest Americans continued spending on $200 haircuts and $500 
> seven-ply cashmere sweaters, we can all rest easy
>
Saw another study in the defunct magazine Emigre' which indicated that
people with large sums of money were also much more suceptible to
advertising on TV. My assumption is when one is tired and stressed
to the point of sexual impotence, one is psycholgically more susceptible
to TV advertising's traditional hooks: sex, excitement, and unless you
have *this* widget, your life is incomplete. (Of course, if your life 
revolves
around 'stuff' and the means to get it, your life will never *be* complete,
but hey, it's just giving 'em what they want (...and we'll have no analysis
here of from whence those wants originate, right Woj? It's individual
choice, sacrosanct... nothing institutional about those desires...)

Leigh
www.leighm.net
http://leighmdotnet.blogspot.com/