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Console-lation for hard times
Friday, October 10, 2008
It's not my job to tell people how to spend their money. Assuming there still are people who have money. But a front-page story in the New York Times the other day has me wondering about the definition of the word "necessity."
The Times' story was more of the same bad financial news that is becoming so familiar. It cited expectations that quarterly consumer spending will have its steepest decline since 1981 and it quoted a consultant who declared, "The last few days have devastated the American consumer."
The newspaper sent reporters out to the shopping Meccas of America to interview some of the devastated American consumers. In Chicago, they found a devastated suburban mother of three who had to use a coupon to buy a two-piece sweatsuit at Talbot's and school clothes for her kids from the sale rack at The Children's Place. At a high-end art and furniture store in Las Vegas, they spoke with a devastated sales manager who said that there had been a huge drop-off in foot traffic and almost no sales.
"People have lost their confidence," he declared. "They are losing their retirements, their vacation funds, and they are scared to commit to buying anything."
But it's not just the high-enders. In a Chicago suburb, there was the young woman who no longer could afford to dine once a week at expensive restaurants such as Chili's. Now she eats on the cheap at Subway. In Cleveland, there was the independent trucker from Oklahoma who has stopped eating at restaurants altogether and was shopping at Wal-Mart to buy lunch meat and bread.
And so the story went. Gloom here, doom there. Car sales ... down. Home sales ... down. Airline passenger traffic ... down. High-end art ... down.
Does all the news that's fit to print have to be so depressing? Not necessarily. You'll be glad to know that sales are strong in at least one area:
Video games.
At Nintendo of America, the newspaper reported, "the popular Wii video game consoles are still selling briskly at about $300."
"My view is that when consumers get concerned about their nest egg, or their country, they need entertainment," explained the president and CEO of the Entertainment Merchants Association.
As the saying goes: When times get tough, the tough get gaming.
Which is understandable human behavior, I suppose. After a long day of selling apples on street corners, I'm sure our great-grandparents trudged home and looked for ways to forget about the Great Depression. I have no idea what those ways were, though, seeing as they had no money. So maybe they spent the evening playing Rock, Paper, Scissors or something of that nature.
During periods of unemployment at our house, my parents did what they could to take their minds off their financial worries. They played penny ante card games with the neighbors. They read library books. The only time they treated themselves to a movie was on Wednesdays, which was the night the theater gave away free dishes.
That was then and this is now, of course. Still, I'm not sure how badly people really are hurting if it's necessary for them to buy $300 toys to forget about their pain.
Contact this writer at (937) 225-2439 or at dlstewart@DaytonDailyNews.com.
