Consumerism, Expectations and Government
Last night I was watching TV and noticed a Christmas ad from Best Buy that promoted $300 headphones. 300 dollars! This seems extreme. I don’t think I spent that much money on my whole stereo.
It reminds me of something I’ve noticed over the last few years having to do with my perception and the price of goods. Four years ago I needed a new furnace. Going in I really had no idea if we were talking about an $800 investment or an $8,000 tab. The model I bought came in under $4,000 installed — clearly a long way from my initial $800 dream.
Now if I walked into a store expecting to pay $800 and the cashier asked for $4,000 I would walk away without the product. But, if the transition happens over time, I notice my paradigm shifts. Learning that a furnace cost $4,000 was a game changer - but I still had to play because I like my pipes in one piece. Once it was firing away I didn’t walk around feeling like I’d been taken to the cleaners, rather I just paid the going rate for an essential home system.
I think this is the psychological phenomenon Best Buy is hoping will happen with the headphones. And it’s really what the corporate society wants across the board. Most products prices aren’t calculated based on cost, after all. It’s based on how much vendors can squeeze out of us for said product.
Government also plays with our perceived sense of the where the game is at. During campaigns much is done to downplay expectations. For instance the McCain team lowered expectations going into the debates because they didn’t want to elevate hopes and find their candidate had underperformed. The same could be said for Congress and even the legislature. ‘Keep Expectations Low’ is the modern mantra, no matter who’s in charge.
Unless the corporate class is at risk. Then leaders shift us from our cute notion of an $800 fix to the $1 trillion reality that makes for a bailout. That was one heck of a game changer. But, like a furnace we are told it’s essential. So the American consumer accepted our fate and signed the check. Anything less would have been unpatriotic. I mean does anyone really hope to buy headphones for $29 anymore? How cute.
I have no idea how we the people take control of this problem, but my sense is electing different people helps. All the political dust up in Burlington lately reflects the elevated expectations voters have come to expect in Progressives. And fair enough, Progressives have worked hard to raise the bar. And we have a waterfront, a marketplace, a prevailing wage rate, a vibrant arts culture and, yes, even a state-of-the-art telecom utility to prove what can happen when we strive for real solutions. Let’s hope we live to see the day Washington and Montpelier learn to shoot so high. That’s a game-changer I’d like to see.
November 20th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
- Best Buy doesn’t set the MSRP of the headphones they sell, and it’s kind of a bummer that you don’t understand the difference between $29 and $300 headphones or why they carry their respective pricetags.
- BT is what happens when you “strive for real solutions” to a problem that doesn’t exist, and pay $10K or $12K for a $4K furnace in the process. And then the furnace explodes and sets your house on fire.
- Interesting to hear that Progs invented Church St. and the arts culture of Burlington. I seem to remember those predating the party itself, and that Church St. actually wasn’t overrun with chain stores back then - but maybe my memory is failing.
November 22nd, 2009 at 1:32 pm
When Bernie served as mayor he launched an aggressive arts program with events like the Jazz Fest and more. Many are alive and well today. But you’re right, in those days there wasn’t a Progressive Party, it was the Progressive Coalition, the precursor to the statewide party.
These same people also gave us community gardens, a renewable, local source for electricity and have lead a city that annually receives accolades from independent judges across the country. Burlington is the only city in the nation run by an independent political party (or coalition) for almost 30 years. Do you really think that’s a coincidence?
November 23rd, 2009 at 10:30 am
The arts culture is not attributable to Jazz Fest, it’s the nature of the people of the City. Bernie did not create or change that. Creative people were gravitating to BTV long before he came along. BTW the coalition formed after he was elected, and both BED and the McNeil plant predated Bernie, so I’m not sure what you’re talking about there.
I will say that Bernie did a couple of good, if fairly simple and obvious, things for the City. He didn’t get in the way of the waterfront revitalization that was already underway when he took office, for example. It’s too bad that those who came after him made a big old stinkburger of his efforts in the last few years, probably destroying that independent political party in the process.
November 23rd, 2009 at 10:50 am
“He didn’t get in the way of the waterfront revitalization that was already underway…”
That’s an interesting read on history. If it were true we would have big hotels where we currently have the waterfront park. This was the central issue to Bernie’s electoral victory in 1981. BED has been around since the turn of the last century, but under Progressive leadership (Bernie/Clavelle) ramped up investments in efficiency - a move that resulted in a rate drop and a decrease in power consumption for the city.
November 23rd, 2009 at 12:25 pm
“Rate drop”? Funny, seems like BED rates have been increasing quite dramatically the past few years, and seemed poised to continue to do so. So what’s the “renewable, local source for electricity” that the Progs gave us?
Re: the waterfront, the point is that everyone wanted to revitalize that area starting in the ’70’s. The fact that there were a couple of false starts before Bernie showed up doesn’t mean that he came up with the idea of doing something down there. Private developers and public sentiment had essentially established what wasn’t acceptable, so it was a simple process of elimination to determine what was. Simply executing that wasn’t exactly a bold initiative.
November 23rd, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Bernie campaigned against the proposed waterfront development plan put forward by developers and the democratic mayor, so yeah, people were talking about redeveloping the waterfront but it was Bernie and the voters who put the breaks on and instead created the public entity we all enjoy today.
The McNeil plant opened in 1986, I believe, but you’re right, it was in the works pre-Bernie. There was a 5% rate drop in the 90s directly related to efficiency investments made during the 80s.
I think we have a lot to do in Burlington to address poverty, hunger, jobs and more. But do you really think there is no connection between the city’s leadership and the accolades we get year in and year out?
November 23rd, 2009 at 6:12 pm
There were three other false starts before that one, and no one “put the breaks (sic)” on the Pomerleau project, they withdrew it. As I said, public sentiment was articulated. If Bernie acted as a megaphone for that, good for him; he’s pretty much made a career of that. There’s no question, though, that the airing of grievances that accompanied the failed projects left a clear blueprint for what the waterfront was going to end up looking like, regardless of who pulled the trigger.
“There was a 5% rate drop in the 90s”
Great, there was a 23% increase in 2006 and another 11.33% increase this year. If Bernie gets credit for the 5%, Clavelle and/or Kiss get credit for seven times the increases.
Read those accolades more closely; almost all of them are based on attributes of Burlington that were either here hundreds of years ago, or are attributable to its people, not its mayors. In any case, we’re going to find out the answer to that question starting in 2012, if not sooner.
November 23rd, 2009 at 7:01 pm
BED’s rates are about average for Vermont as far as I can tell, and Vermont has the lowest rates in New England (not to mention the lowest CO2 emissions in the country.) The local government of Burlington isn’t driving the price of electricity, the cost of natural gas is. That Burlington invested in a power plant that doesn’t burn natural gas had to do with the local government and insulates it from the price swings, but a lot of these arguments, like most blog arguments I suppose, are oversimplifying the issues.
By the way, electricity is a fabulous deal at any price. A person laboring all day performs about 1 kWh of work, for which we pay at most $0.16! Even solar PV at $0.22 cents/kWh is a bargain in this light.
November 24th, 2009 at 11:30 am
Interesting thoughts, Chris. I recall buying a pair of “Noise-canceling” headphones for $60 and feeling a little guilty because who really needs expensive headphones, anyhow? The sickness in our culture is that it teaches people to believe that they either deserve their indulgences, or (much worse) NEED them.
In the meantime, the difference between a decent pair of headphones and a “hey look at me I can afford to buy things I obviously don’t need” pair of headphones is vast - and the difference in price could’ve gone much further to support local agriculture or local workers by purchasing their goods or services.
Or, think about how many pounds of food at the Foodbank that $60 or $800 would buy… or how many meals that would make for a working family.
When we buy things we don’t really need, we are taking part in redistributing wealth in the wrong direction, away from the those with unmet basic needs and into the hands of those who don’t understand what need is. Of course, very few of us manage to avoid this - but we can either recognize this classism as a challenge to overcome, or celebrate our good fortunes at the expense of others.
Perhaps in addition to “Buy Local” we might also try to “buy useful”.
November 24th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
“Perhaps in addition to “Buy Local” we might also try to “buy useful”.”
Noise canceling headphones can make the difference between getting a days’ work done on a cross country flight and just counting the minutes until you’re not sitting next to a screaming baby. If this happens just once, they’ve paid for themselves.
Just because you don’t need something doesn’t mean no one needs it.