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.
You are correct. If we don;t spend, it doesn’t benefit anyone. That’s the point. We are on strike until further notice...
LOL! Glad you at least have a sense of humor and patience.
No, I;m thankful to say I can’t see his hands . . .
>> So it’s lose 50% on gold for a certainty or lose more on inflation if I keep cash, am I right?
Who knows. I sure don’t. Only time will tell.
>> Neither option looks good to me.
Those aren’t the only two options. There are other ways besides gold to hedge against inflation.
Some of my best friends started mouthing off about how we’re “going to make the top 2% of people who make the most and havent paid any taxes for the past 8 years under the other administration” when i asked how they’d pay for Cash for Grannies, i had to stop right there because i felt my blood pressure instantly spike to the max. how does one remain cool and explain rationally why the other person is wrong? i tend to get really emotional and angry when i hear stupid shit like that.
toothpaste, soap detergent, cola, ....
You forgot the most important one ... toilet paper.
About a year ago there was a good 30 percent increase and I haven’t bought any since before that increase. To date I have only used about 50% of my stock from prior. Beginning to look like the price will never go down now.
liberals do it too
Recently I lost a 3 month position because of my political views. It was at a CA state funded LA City School project. I think the manager was a fag. No Biggie. I sensed the bait and punched back verbally, I could have just stayed quiet, I paid the little price.
The most profound element of being blessed with USA Heritage is the access of the common person to freedom.
Tyranny takes many forms, from religous persecution to political persecution and economic class or racial ethnic persecution.
I only bow in respect to those who have fought tyranny, honorable soldiers, public officials of moral character, individuals who oppose the Bully, the greedy and the tyrants
God Bless America, God strike down tyranny
God thank you that although I did not earn wealth by most American standards, but by being born in the USA, it has allowed me to experience wealth unknown to most of the world. And I am a common Amrican laborer watching everything that I have earned over a lifetime slip away
I don't know about that .... how many of them are real ideologues, and how many just got bullsteered by the MSM and the clever, gauzy-generality-slinging strategy Little Tommy Dasschole and Axlesquid dreamed up for Mr. Dreamboat?
The whole thing was a massive exercise in bullsqueeze and atmospherics; it would have taken a well-educated person who hadn't been mentally poisoned by years of NEA and faculty-Marxist bullslinging to see through the smoke and spot the Socialist Realism tags and warnings fluttering here and there. It took some pretty alert and stout conservatives with large cods to call BS on Obama's Big Daddy Feelgood act, with all the Hollywood and New York talent blowing smoke up everyone's pants.
On the other hand, tell us how you *really* feel ..... ;)
Been there, know what you mean, man. Some of my friends, I could just shake them, they are so wilfully stupid and clueless. Communists have killed what, a hundred million people in the last 110 years? And these women just refuse to get a clue. It's just "newspapers reality", something that happened in a country far, far away -- "it can't happen here." Bushwah, buy a clue!
Thought something was smelling funny around here....
We had no choice. We took in about $100,000 less last year than the year before.
That has an effect on your spending habits ;o)
And I have an answer: Gold, silver, guns, ammo.
Cheers!
Aux armes, citoyens !
Formez vos bataillons !
Marchons ! marchons !
Qu’un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons !
Thank you. I tried to find a copy of The Road to Marseillie by Kipling on net, and was unable.
parsy, who did read some of the Jungle Book again.
http://appleseedproject.blogspot.com/2008/02/liberty-training-rifle.html
Mine has a Hogue overmoulded stock with the Tech Sights.
You need some new friends. Seriously.
No, it was a poem he wrote. The English translation was something like:
On the Road to Marseille
Where the frying Frenchies lay
And the Dom comes up like thunder
On the china on the tray.
Something like that. Marseille is on the coast so I think it had something to do with nude sunbathing and rich people getting sick on wine. You know that class warfare stuff.
parsy, whose memory is getting thin as he gets older
I can honestly say that I and many of my friends have been doing this since last November. It feels great. Just buy the necessities and save the cash.
Another thing I’ve done is give up smoking after more than twenty years. I bought one of the electronic cigarettes and haven’t looked back. No way was I going to give Obama a dollar per pack to push his socialist agenda. The electronic cigs have really taken off here. No tobacco, no withdrawals and no buck a pack to the Marxist.
A snippy Chihuahua? ;)
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