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.
Chastity belt?
I know I'm coming late to the thread, thought I'd kick in my $0.02.
To your comment, and for the other posters.... I used to work at a large garment manufacturer. (You've seen their stores, and their products, unless you live under a rock).
Anyway, a few weeks ago I was talking with one of the few people I know who still work there. Guy works at their Distribution Center (DC); the place is huge, like 500,000 ft^2 under roof. Back-to-School is their biggest time. Right now the DC should be going three shifts and Saturdays (they don't really work Sunday, just "essential" services).
Instead, last month it was working a staggered 1-1/2 shifts, and no weekends.
So, rather than going a full-bore 24/6, they're working a scant 12/5. And this is at the top of the chain, if they're not shipping product, then product isn't going on shelves and people aren't buying.
Back-To-School is this company's BIG moneymaker, with XMas a distant second. I'll likely be yakking with this guy in Sept/Oct, I'm curious to see what the holidays are bringing.
I'd like to be optimistic, but I think that we're a good ways from getting out of this mess. Especially since the current leadership won't stop digging us deeper.
Thanks for the informative reply. I have family in retail and, although they went to market week in July, they didn’t put in much of an order for the Christmas stock compared to other years.
It’s amazing how the toadies in the MSM treat us like mushrooms.
We can't draw logical conclusions without the help of the MSM either. :-)
I really think we're in for a tough year or two. Probably not a bad thing, ultimately, but a lot of good people are going to take it right on the chin.
Fortunately, the populace is waking up. If the current administration gets stopped on a few of their more odious initiatives, we might be looking better in a year or so, rather than two or three (or more....).
It’s coming up on a year out of steady employment for me. Glad to hear you found something, good luck Brother.
Atlas Shrugged ping!
Thank you, good luck to you finding a job.
No, it isn't !
But MARTIAL law might be.
This past December/January, before the Fascists took total control of America when Present 0b0z0 was sworn in, many of us suggested buying high $ ticket items before 0b0z0 became the head fascist.
Since 0b0z0 became the el supremo facist, we have not bought a single high $ ticket item with the exception of a small freezer, (our 42 year old mini freezer died a couple of weeks ago).
My addiction to Spey Fly Rods, lines and reels has been satisfied by trades and buying good used equipment from friends and other Spey Casters.
My Trophy Wife despises 0b0z0 even more than I do, and she only buys replacement clothes on sale. Talbots probably has a picture of her on milk cartoons as a missing key customer.
Buy her a nice dress, you miserly beast.
So people who work for a wage aren't productive? I hope you don't really mean that. Class warfare is ugly and counterproductive no matter what direction it comes from.
Why should we spend? Who knows what this yahoo is getting us into? How would we know? Who feels confident right now? GDO. It’s in the bible.
No, you still don’t get it. It’s not ONLY a stiff middle finger, it’s the knowledge that any of us could be next. It simply doesn’t make sense to be spending right now, and you should NEVER put your own financial well being on the line for some perceived benefit to society.
BTW - how can stimulus work when we don’t make anything here any longer?
“Buy her a nice dress, you miserly beast.”
She won’t let me!
Yesterday, she monitored me as I went through the zillion emails I received since my cataract removal and ban from the computer by my eye surgeon for a week. I am supposed to spend no more than 30 minutes at a time on the computer, before I take an eye break.
There were 6 emails from Talbots with sales, free gifts and please come in. She hit the delete key herself.
Her vacation last week was taking me to the surgery center for the cataract removal and lens replacement and the zillion eye drops that follow. Also, I have a torn meniscus, which will be operated on this Wednesday. So instead of a vacation, she has been working on getting all of the lab, EKGs and other data for the operation. A really great vacation. She has allowed me to buy her a couple of lunches and a breakfast.
Welcome back to the Living Dead GD! My First Wife buys all of the latest yesterdays fashions on eBay and has me bidding on a Citron blouse today that sells new for $295.00. I missed one yesterday with a $55.00 bid, however She has closets full of eBay exclusives...
I think most of us knew it, the only question was what that would look like.
ps----you'll notice I didn't freepmail, nor email you during your hiatus. Glad you could get all that done before Obamacare's health czars say you can't.
My wife prides herself in not sending emails nor having an email address.
I have suggested EBay to her, and she just glares at me.
Apparently, an enterprising woman has opened a local like new shop which carries good fashions. She may go there.
Yes of course they (average workers) can be productive and usually are, but what I am saying is that it is happening right now, like it or not. Class warfare has been going on since I can remember and has greatly accelerated (in this country) in the last 30 years due to the constant bombardment of Socialist ideology of gloom and doom and class envy. The ills are caused by who? Why yes, the “haves” of course, why, the rich, the oil companies, big pharma, people who buy luxury vehicles (SUVs?), nice homes, gated communities, on and on and on.
But they don’t go that extra step and surely don’t want us to figure out who WORKS for those same entities, making a living, doing well and gee whiz, even having INSURANCE plans. Wow, what a concept.
What did everyone expect? This is exactly what they wanted and it’s not just class warfare but racial division and hatred ginned up by our own president for God’s sake. I’m not advocating any such thing but I sure can observe this progression and now here I am in my late 60s watching a radical takeover of our country and marginalizing the rest of us, a dangerous and potentially DEADLY marginalization I might add.
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