It's Crybaby Time for Consumers

[Kristijntje]

Opinion piece from the print edition of AdWeek:

This was the year when a crybaby culture took hold of the national temperament. Even before the post-Katrina runup, rising gas prices had produced a volume of self-pitying complaint more appropriate to the end of the world. In polls relating gas prices to consumer spending, people were vowing to cut their outlays to the bone, even while confessing they couldn't be bothered to carpool. Surveys fielded just prior to holidays found respondents saying they'd sit home (and sulk, presumably) rather than buy the gas to drive someplace for the long weekend. Every little blip in the Labor Department's new-jobs figures brought on a fresh crisis in consumer confidence, even as the overall upward trend in employment was prompting Alan Greenspan to rein in the economy...

...Even the Dark Ages eventually came to an end, though. Perhaps the adults who now read nothing more grown-up than Harry Potter will decide they're ready for literature that wasn't written mainly for 11-year-olds. And maybe we'll see a backlash against immaturity by kids who now are growing up amid infantile adults. A motto for such a movement: Don't trust anyone over 30 who acts as though he's under 30.

full article: http://www.adweek.com/aw/magazine/articl...1000652494