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.
The biggest benefit is that it will teach the lower 50% of wage earners where their bread is buttered. Its not the government, so they will be less likely to vote for more Obama candidates. They will learn to value business people and respect those that create wealth. As a result, the American capitalist system will be enhanced, not ruin. So it is a small step backwards now for long term prosperity later. Politicians need to learn to value businesses, not stomp on them...or else.
Amen.
If everyone that opposed the health care bill would halt any unneccessary spending immediately, we could starve the s.o.b. out of the White House. Let the liberals try to make up the slack. They will be poorer and we will be richer. And Obama won't be able to call us racists or send his union goons to attack us while we sit at home quietly being frugal.
Just a 20% drop in spending would have a bipartisan Congress poring over the Constitution next month for 10 different ways to impeach him.
For those who think that this will cause more job losses, well, it is going to happen anyway. Nothing is going to make this kind of economy grow. The market will probably head down again in the 4th quarter, after he gets his bills passed. That's why he is in such a hurry. The so-called economic recovery is mostly just numbers manipulation for the Dems benefit.
Better to rip the bandage off now before we lose it all. If they could, the founding fathers would be asking us what we were waiting for.
Depends what you’re buying.
If hyperinflation hits (and that seems more and more likely everyday) you need to be buying things that you won’t be able to afford when it does. Neccessities, not niceties.
“Exactly, buy nothing!!”
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No, buy nothing but...food, guns, ammunition, survival gear.
Why do you think gold has been doing so well? If you hold it in another country, it will make it harder for Obama to confiscate it (ala FDR).
When they were passing the Bank Bailouts I advised everyone to run the Banks. Now I say Run the banks and the stock market. Cash in tune out and drop out of this insanity.
All warfare is based primarily on the deception of an enemy. Fighting on a battlefield is the most primitive way of making war. There is no art higher than to destroy your enemy without a fight—by SUBVERTING anything of value in the enemy’s country.___ Sun Tzu, Chinese philosopher, 500 B.C.
Personally, i think this is the wrong on several fronts. First, why don’t the well off & small business owners bitch to the press and anyone else that will listen ? Not speaking out is the biggest part of Americas problem. The left do not own the Soapbox. Political Correctness has got to be relegated to the dust bin of history. If you know that your message is based in truth & facts. Then by damn, just get out there and say so !
This thread needs to be sent out on every ping list so that everyone gets a chance to read and participate in it. This is one of the most important posts in a while.
I guarantee you, if my employer were to do that, I'd own his company after my lawyers were through with him.
I didn't oppose the tactics of the Left so that they could become the tactics of the Right. They were wrong in the 1990s, they're wrong now.
Some say market losses are just on paper, but that's not what it felt like to me, nor are the tax increases that are all but guaranteed to come, including the end of the Bush tax cuts. Maybe happy days will be here again, but it's batten down the hatches time now. To think we have obamanomics at least until 2012...God help us.
The ‘poor’ are not the ones creating jobs.
Go Fedex, go. Oh wait, pending, wait Fedex wait.
Bingo! Anyone able to lay off people need to lay off Ogabe supporters. (just don’t let ‘em know thats the reason your letting ‘em go) I bet there are plenty of people right here on FR that have positions that would allow them to make layoff decisions, Your right! GIVE’EM CHANGE!
Well I understand what you are saying, however, for example, in a right-to-work state like Texas, you may be sent packing for whatever reason your employer thinks is justifiable. I don’t know how many times during my career I was reminded of that.
As one owner said, “If you don’t like that, feel free to start your own business”. The man had a point.
Along with that, I enjoy our way in Texas regardless, after awhile you realize that the owner has his rights also, he may refuse service, he may establish a dresscode and he darn sure can fire you (one) for whatever reason.
Same here
If you worked for me, and I could rest assured that you voted for Obama, I WOULD find a REASON to let you go.
Yessir, You can close your business any day that you want to. You can fire every employee at 330PM, and then resume business the next day by hiring back only those who please you.
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