Debt and America's Consumerism

Debt is almost as American as hamburgers and drive-thrus, if not more, but it has people of all classes in a stranglehold.  What could have lead to such a thing?  While this could be a junior theme all unto itself, as some people in our class investigated, I will cover a few ideas.  First, I read THIS article, by the New York Times, which explains the history of American debt.

It starts the history by saying that Americans have had a lot of debt in the past.  In the 1800s, farmers used credit, a form of debt, to buy items for their farm and survival.  Debt was used as a tool to get what you needed, then to be repaid in a predictable fashion.  It was looked down upon to have too much debt or to not pay back your debt.

In the 1920s, debt was used to pay for appliances.  Debt was used to keep workers in order, and give them an incentive to work harder.  Citizens bought houses, cars, and other things on credit.  This kind of debt was used to promote a certain lifestyle, and to own what was in style.  People did not use it for survival, but rather for personal gain.  This is similar to what Americans do today.

Today, the average amount of debt per person in the United States is about $15,000, mostly on credit cards. How do people manage to accumulate all of this?  It is mostly due to a flaw in the American dream.  This ideal usually the message that you can go from rags to riches in America, and make life much better for your kids.  However, some baggage that comes with the dream is the idea that you can make yourself happier by buying large amounts of things.  This is the foundation for consumerism.  This is the socioeconomic trend that causes people to want to buy an ever increasing amount of new possessions.  Consumerism has lead to a huge amount of debt for individuals, who struggle to pay it all and have gone bankrupt.  At my previous church, there were financial helpers and advisors who could help families pay off and get rid of their debt.  This is clearly a huge problem in our culture today.  I don't think that happiness can come from buying more things.  If you think it can, watch Madame Blueberry, a VeggieTales production.

So, debt was useful for survival in the past, and people depended on it in order to pay for their food before their crops came in.  Now, debt is used to try to gain happiness in the form of stuff.  I find this very empty and meaningless.  But some may not.  Are there are any times when buying things can make you happier?  Can this last in the long run?  Won't all material possessions break or become useless eventually?

The Big Move

The other day we talked about Mr. Bolos's daily commute from the station in Wheaton to the Indian Hill station near the school.  Some of the differences he notices are glaring because he travels through so many different communities in order to get to work.  In some ways, I made the same change of location only 3 years ago.  My dad commutes into the city to work.  He rode the Milwaukee district west line, and now rides the Milwaukee district north line, which is similar to Mr. Bolos's commute.

Right before freshman year, I lived in Bloomingdale, which is in Dupage County (area code 60108).  For your information, Bloomingdale is a sizeable town, with about 22000 residents.  I went to church there, elementary school there, etc.  I was very familiar with the area.  When we moved to Wilmette, area code 60091, there were many stark contrasts in how the town was constructed.  My first thoughts were that Bloomingdale was much more spread out than Wilmette or Winnetka.  There, large groups of homes were built together, usually by a single housing contractor.  These subdivisions were separated by geographical barriers, such as a golf course, a four lane road, a shopping center, or a school.  There was also more yard space, which in conjunction with these other factors, makes Bloomingdale more spread out than Wilmette or Winnetka.

Some other differences are that Bloomingdale has more gas stations, more fast food restaurants, more large chain stores, and more strip malls.  There is also a large shopping mall in Bloomingdale, called Stratford Square Mall.  It is a very large mall by any standard, and I still could get lost there (but hey, I'm a male).  It also has less tall trees, and the ones that are tall are distanced more.  Since buildings and attractions are farther apart, most people don't walk or ride their bikes places.  There are more obese people there too.

It is obvious that Bloomingdale is a newer suburb, and was structured in an area where land was plentiful and flat, while Wilmette and Winnetka seem to have been built in an area where they had to cut down more trees for buildings and land was limited on two sides by Chicago and Lake Michigan.  Bloomingdale  has more town homes and apartment style living than Wilmette or Winnetka, but the majority of what I saw were single, unattached houses.  In the subdivision where I lived, there were four groups of living arrangements with a club house in the middle, where there are swimming pools, a workout room, and banquet halls.  Single homes, luxury homes, townhomes, and luxury townhomes, which were pretty much houses, but sort of small, and attached to three others.  They had two car garages and were relatively new.

Since Bloomingdale is a more recent suburb of Chicago, it has attracted greater diversity of cultures and races.  There are large populations of Italian, Indian, Irish, and Polish people.  Here, there are more Jewish people than I have ever met in one place.

There are more differences that I notice, but I think this post is long enough now.  Even though there are these differences, I would argue that Bloomingdale is still more similar to the North Shore than Belmont, where the truck logistic center is, or most of the other stops along Mr. Bolos's route.  It is clean, the sky is still blue, and the people are mostly middle class because of their education and job opportunities.  Do you think that my experience was totally different from yours if you lived on the North Shore for a longer time than I?  Have you lived anywhere else?  How was that different?  What can we learn from studying these different suburban communities?

Diswasher Blues

This weekend our family got a new dishwasher.  The old one was 8 years old and deposited sediment on our glassware and didn't clean our china.  It would have required a $300 repair bill, and then more over time, or we could buy a new one and experience the joy of not wasting water to pre-wash, run the dishwasher, and then re-wash the dishes.  Needless to say, we were able to buy a new one and had it installed by some men from the appliance store.

One of the men was Hispanic, and assisted an older guy (maybe in his 50s) who was Caucasian and did most of the attaching, drilling, and actual installation under the counter.  It occurred to me that they were probably not upper class citizens because they serviced appliances for others.  I immediately was ashamed of myself for thinking like that.  All my life I have been taught never to judge others, and that all other people are my equals before God, and therefore I should treat them as equals.  By thinking that they were in some way below me socioeconomically, I felt like I had violated not only what my parents had taught me, but my religion as well.

The same kind of feeling came over me at prom, when I noticed that all of the servers were wearing basic serving attire, and were Hispanic and didn't say much, only served us.  I felt like an upper class citizen.  But I don't think I should.  I shouldn't feel this way.

The strange thing to me is how recent this feeling has been.  Only since we started talking about class differences in American Studies have I begun to sense a difference in the way I live against the way others live.  I think that I never wanted to learn about any of these differences.  I shouldn't feel guilty or anything either.  I like the way I live.  I don't believe there is anything wrong with that.  So why bring it up?  I know that we should understand that the North Shore isn't the norm, but trust me, I get it.  Most people don't live a life of privileged.  I understand.  I even found THIS great article on class mobility (warning, its long) to learn about how it is harder to move up in social class.  I think the point has been driven in.  So why does the course have to amplify all of this?

Classy? Or not?

Today in class, we watched a documentary about how to act like an upper class person.  It was a little ridiculous, because as most of the class saw, the person who was trying to learn just acted awkward around the people she tried to socialize with.  She didn't seem comfortable, even though she looked like she fit in.  I looked for more tips on how to "be classy" online.  I figured that they would give basic tips to help a person in any social situation, and I was right.  HERE is what I found.

To me, being classy is just acting mostly refined and proper, as well as being clean and dressing with good taste. However, classy means "having class," which seems like saying that one has what it takes to be upper class.  According to the Wordle that Mr. Bolos made, upper class people have wealth, power, high levels of education, and use their wealth to buy expensive stuff.  None of that information was on the website about how to have class.  In fact, the only mention of money is in two out of the 16 tips.  Number 8 and Number 9.  8 says to be clean and look good.  Wear clothes and accessories that flatter your body.  Number 9 says to not be a slave to trends, and don't look high-maintenance.  So one says to spend money to look good and the other says not to spend excessively.

I find this advice to be so neutral that it almost doesn't help at all.  It fails to advise the public about how to do upper-class-ish things, like shop, go places, not act awkwardly, and assimilate to an upper-class lifestyle.  Also, it doesn't mention anything about race.  It doesn't say that most non-whites will most likely have a hard time fitting in to a white-dominated upper class.  I believe that this is to maintain neutrality, but in doing so, important information is lost.  While this one article may not be the best to analyze in this manner, I believe that it would be more helpful to give advice other than basic guidelines on how to interact with others.  How does this article and its problems/solutions reflect our societal class system?

Standardized Testing: A Necessary Evil

Today the Junior class just finished the second day of Prairie State Testing.  Let me tell ya', it was quite a test.  One of the most difficult parts was sitting for 8 hours in the same room, in the same desk even, performing the same repetitious task.  Read the passage.  Read the question.  Find the answer.  Fill in a circle with a number 2 soft-lead pencil.  (If you use any other writing utensil, you clearly have a hearing issue because the proctor had to say it about 10 times over the course of the test.)  I personally found the monotony almost mind numbing, and I took a nap as soon as I got home.  While I realize that taking this test (which includes a full ACT, with writing) is necessary for college admissions and maybe even graduation in the state of Illinois, I had to wonder why they needed this kind of test.

I looked on ACT's website to find out what the intended purpose of their test was.  A link can be found HERE.  One interesting fact that I found out was that ACT also makes tests to test the workforce of a company for competency.  I found that the purpose of the ACT was the following: "The ACT^® test assesses high school students' general educational development and their ability to complete college-level work."  Now, I have to wonder, is the ACT actually the best way to measure a student's total cumulation of education?  It seems as if it only tests certain subject areas.  It mostly tests one's ability to read and comprehend it, as well as basic grammatical skills and some math skills.  If that is all that one learns in high school, isn't school then a waste of time?  Those skills are important for college, but that's not all I have learned so far.  I have learned more than what was on the test, like how to think critically, analyze sections of text or actions, how to make movies, and how to interact socially with other students.  Are these things not important? (Ok, most colleges probably won't ask us to make movies.)


The Prairie State day two test was even more frustrating, because it asked us questions that would "test our readiness for the workforce."  It asked us things like how many people should be in a picture if you and your 6 friends wanted to have a picture taken.  I understand that in some parts of Illinois there may be a school where the student struggle with this, but I don't think that this kind of test is necessary to show that.  Why couldn't colleges be content with a copy of our transcript and a detailed report of what kinds of classes each student took, along with a school's reputation?  Why must students be reduced to numbers?

The Future is Now, but Why Weren't We Here Earlier?

This weekend I watched a fascinating documentary for the second time called Who Killed the Electric Car?  It traces the history of an all-electric car produced by General Motors in 1996 and literally destroyed by its makers  by 2005.  The film researches the causes of the death of the electric car at this time by interviewing many people involved in its sale, distribution, and production, as well as politicians and people who influenced the decisions of CARB, the air resources board in California.  It turns out that a mixture of forces, including Big Oil companies, Big car companies, and government organizations failing to keep the car manufacturers to a high standard killed the electric car.  One interesting thing is to see how other car companies killed their electric vehicle programs from the same era.  I found a lot of information about that here.

However, each of these groups has a very strong reason to kill the electric car: profits.  But there is one factor that was completely unexpected to me.  Hydrogen power.  For years, car companies have been researching hydrogen power as a source of clean energy to power their vehicles.  For over 15 years, researchers have said that the technology to produce such a car is about 15-20 years away.  The issues with this technology are that it is not very durable, uses more energy than battery powered cars, and lacks infrastructure to support it.  However, the technology for battery powered electric vehicles exists now.

The problem is, we should already have battery powered cars on the road!  It is only because the car companies and oil companies killed the program that we don't already have access to the technology that we should.  As Chelsea Sexton said in the movie, "This is the technology of the future, but it shouldn't have to be. It should be the technology of now."

Working on Writing

In the process of writing my Junior Theme, I have thoroughly enjoyed researching electric cars.  I love to find out new information and to understand just what happened when, and all the chemsitry of why each battery works even better than the previous.  However, that is not the point of this.  While I love to gather information, it will be nothing unless I can express what I learned in a way my audience will understand.  Frequently I have a hard time coming up with the right words to explain everything that is in my head, which is why I see Junior Theme as so daunting.  But its time to bite the proverbial bullet and just do it.  So here is a sample intro I'm working on.  Please comment and tell me what you think.

The year is 2100.  What will it look like?  Will the world be a green utopia with flying cars and happy people, or will we languish on a destroyed planet filled with our own waste?  Largely, the answer to that question lies with our choices of energy.  Out of all the energy that humans use, about 30 percent of that energy is used for transportation, so it is imperative that transportation pollutes the least amount possible. (eia) One alternative to gasoline is an electric car that runs off of battery power.  While there are many benefits and advocates of using this type of transportation, it has been stopped from having clear successes every time it was introduced to the market.  Even today, when citizens of nearly every country agree that global warming is a serious problem, electric cars were still denied access to the roads.  The electric car didn't succeed in the United States because of unrealistic consumer expectations, lack of infrastructure, shortsighted companies, and poor government decisions.

Any thoughts?  Maybe a clear plastic binder will help... ?