Posted on 08/09/2009 10:54:48 AM PDT by Kaslin
The resistance is well underway.
Affluent Americans – defined as the top 20 percent of U.S. households by income – spent about 10 percent less in 2008 than they did in 2007, according to a study by luxury-goods researcher Unity Marketing. And those households with incomes of $250,000 or more are cutting back on spending even more than all affluent households overall. 54 percent of these consumers are spending even less in 2009 than in 2008.
Those $250,000+ earners, threatened and demonized by President Obama, are retaliating with their most powerful and damaging weapon: not spending. It is a quiet, deliberate, determined, very real resistance.
To be sure, some of the cutbacks in spending are related to investment losses, job losses and actual reduction of spending capacity. But much more has nothing whatsoever to do with the ability to spend – only with the unwillingness to spend.
Most in media do not understand the reality of this deliberately reduced and postponed spending as a political resistance movement. But that’s what it is. I’ve talked to many affluent entrepreneurs and professionals who have worked hard for years to finally reach their present income levels. They are intentionally refusing to spend money as a means of protest.
I was recently thinking about replacing my Ford Explorer with a new SUV, at minimum a new Explorer, but perhaps a Lincoln Navigator or Cadillac Escalade. The day Obama first trumpeted the proposed 5.4 percent tax surcharge on gross income of us high-productivity, high-responsibility, high income earners I changed my mind. Instead I spent $514.00 getting a little fender ding months old fixed, paint scratches touched up and the car detailed. The $30,000.00 or $40,000.00 I would have spent on the new car – and I’m a cash buyer – can sleep idly in the bank until the man who has chosen me as his target is gone. And I view it as deliberately depriving him of spending he desperately needs to help his economy. He needs me and others like me buying a new car a whole lot more than I need one.
This is also the first calendar year in at least a decade in which I’ve gone 7 months without buying so much as a single stitch of new clothing. Not a necktie, not a sports-jacket, not a shoelace. Not because I lack the financial ability. And not because I lack interest. I usually buy at least a few new things each season, and for my speaking engagements, I’m actually overdue a new suit. A store I patronize even advertised a remarkably attractive offer last week, offering two free suits with purchase of one. But I will not give the president even a dime of help. I have joined the Affluent Resistance Movement.
Business owners, CEO’s and entrepreneurs are resistors too. Fred Smith at Federal Express has outright stated his company’s order for a fleet of jets is pending and subject to cancellation should the speed-to-unionization scheme Obama supports be enacted – in effect, another epic tax on businesses like his. More CEOs need to step up and make similar threats. If the President will threaten business, why shouldn’t business threaten back?
Together, those in the resistance should all go public, and tell the affected merchants, service providers and professionals why. Business leaders can explain to their vendors that the money not spent with them is political resistance. If those of us in the $250,000+ targeted group, and those who lead companies small and large, all cut spending by yet another 10 percent or 20 percent, we can protest more emphatically than if we all picked up placards and marched up and down Pennsylvania Avenue. We can demonstrate that no power trumps the power of the purse.
It pains me greatly to suggest this, since I advise businesses on marketing and I am paid to help them boost sales. But desperate times demand desperate measures. So I say: send a message. Join the resistance. Buy nothing.
Excellent advice imho.
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Obama Says A Baby Is A Punishment
Obama: “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”
Since Christmas we have bought nothing but gas, food, and...defensive things.
I will not be a sucker any longer.
The problem with this thinking is you can end up shooting yourself in the foot just to kick dirt up in someone else’s face.
As soon as one of these people loses their OWN job due to their company’s sales revenues plummeting, their tune will change.
I don’t know if it’s resistance as much as good policy. The minute we got back from our yearlong retirement trip we pretty much ceased spending all together and we’ve been putting more and more money into assets that can survive a currency devaluation.
Anyone who spends with reckless abandon right now is a fool
Exactly, buy nothing!!
“Atlas Shrugs” or “Who is John Galt?”
Atlas has begun to shrug.
Soon, he’s going to have to pick up a gun.
There is no Galt’s Gulch. We’re already there. We just need to get rid of the vermin.
Wow. Great minds think alike, and all that jazz...
1. If you don't have a gun, get one,
2. If you have a gun, buy another,
3. Buy Spam and ammo (in sealed packs if you can get it),
4. Pay off your bills like your life depended on it,
5. Buy a truck, a Ford - nothing else,
6. If you need another car, buy a used one, if the owner you're buying it from voted for Obama, pass him by,
7. Don't do any business with Democrats, ever.
Perhaps he should have bought that Escalade in 2008 when spending by the wealthy was down ten percent.
These productive folks might also give employees walking papers. Like that idea of looking for employees’ vehicles with Obama stickers and firing them, works for me. Elections have consequences...
After not having a job for a little over a year and a half, and lucky enough to be starting one soon, there are some things I need. Like building a desk and bookcase so I can get rid of the boxes I used to move almost a year ago. Then there’s dental work I need done, more surgery, a car to get me to work in a half hour vs. 2 hours with public transport...
Im endeavoring to pay off all my bills.
Join the underground economy, deal in cash, report nothing that doesnt have a paper trail attached to it. Starve the beast. Buy nothing that has sales tax on it, cash and barter defeats them right at the root. It stops their revenues.
I paid off my credit cards last month....it was a sizable sum I’d let languish in the land of minimum payments for 18 months....it took a coupla good sized paychecks and some extra on-hand cash. But they’re gone now and I’m only using them for emergency buys (good deals on online ammo, etc.).
Go to another country to purchase items...like Mexico help them block this Kenyan. If you need to lay off employees...lay off the ones that voted the Kenyan in. They wanted change give ‘em change.
Also this year, I am going to carefully make sure that I don't pay one dollar of federal income tax that I don't have to. A fed tax dollar is a vote for Obama.
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