Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic Read online

  Advertisements often use exaggeration to touch popular social chords. Consider, for instance, the back cover of one USA Weekend magazine. An attractive woman, identified as “Veronica Lynn, Beverly Hills, FL, Doral Smoker,” smiles from one half of the page while she is quoted on the other half as saying, “It lasts longer than my paycheck.”13 It, in this case, is a Doral cigarette, the product the ad is selling. The underlying message is none too subtle: paychecks don’t last long in contemporary America.

  The United States of America. Land of history’s biggest five-minute paychecks. But why worry? Light up. If you’ve already got affluenza, what’s a little cancer?

  WILL BOOMERS GO BUST?

  Boston College sociologist Juliet Schor points out that most Americans live without an adequate financial cushion. “Sixtypercent of families,” Schor writes, “have so little in the way of financial reserves that they can only sustain their lifestyles for about a month if they lose their jobs. The next richest can only hold out for about three and a half months.”14

  Some economists suggest there’s no cause for alarm. Half of all Americans now own stocks (though in most cases, not many), they point out, and could sell them if need be. In a time of surging stock prices, many higher-income, stock-owning baby boomers see no need to be thrifty. They are relying on selling their stocks at a hefty profit to take care of their retirement needs a few years from now. It’s a risky gamble, argues Thornton Parker, an economic consultant and the author of What If Boomers Can’t Retire? Rising stock prices depend on the ability of boomers to sell their stocks to the next generation of workers, who, they expect, will pay top dollar.

  But there are problems with that scenario, Parker suggests. In the future, there will be fewer workers to buy the stocks, and retirees will have to sell more cheaply to unload them. Moreover, as the Crash of ’29 made only too clear, stock prices can plummet as well as climb, and many of them are already overvalued and not backed up by real corporate earnings.

  Even former millionaires have joined the bankruptcy ranks. Some used their stocks—whose value had continued to rise—as collateral for loans to finance expensive vacations or homes. “I could call up Solomon Smith Barney anytime to ask for $10,000,” said one. But when the value of her stock began to fall, Solomon Smith Barney called her up—to demand repayment. By then, her debts were greater than the amount she could cash her stock in for.

  So why are we spending so much more now? Stay tuned. . . .

  CHAPTER 3

  Swollen

  expectations

  Greed has infected our society.

  It is the worst infection.

  —DR. PATCH ADAMS

  I was sad because I had no onboard fax until

  I saw a man who had no mobile phone.

  —1993 New Yorker cartoon

  BY WARREN MILLER

  Iake a walk down memory lane. Way down. If you’re as old as we are, your memories carry you back to the 1950s, at least. The Second World War and the Great Depression were over, and America was on the move. Suburban houses going up everywhere. New cars rolling from the assembly lines and onto new pavement. Ground breaking for the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, soon to stretch from sea to shining sea. A TV dinner (introduced in 1953) in every oven.

  “It’s a great life, eh, Bob?” a man in a ’50s commercial intones as a young couple and their tow-headed son sit on a couch watching the tube. “And tomorrow will be even better, for you and for all the people.” Of course, the great life wasn’t great for the millions who were poor or discriminated against. And even for middle-class America, it wasn’t worry free. On the same day in 1957 (October 4) that Leave It to Beaver premiered on American television, those pesky Russians shot Sputnik into space. Nikita Khrushchev promised to bury us “in the peaceful field of economic competition.” We know how that came out.

  But 1957 was important for another, less-heralded reason. It was the year the percentage of Americans describing themselves as “very happy” reached a plateau never exceeded and seldom matched since then.1 The following year, a year when Americans bought millions of hula hoops, economist John Kenneth Galbraith published an influential book calling the United States “the affluent society.”

  We felt richer then than we do now. Most Americans today don’t really think of themselves as affluent, says psychologist Paul Wachtel, “even though in terms of gross national product we have more than twice as much as we did then. Everybody’s house has twice as much stuff in it. But the feeling of affluence, the experience of well-being, is no higher and perhaps even lower.”2

  Liberal economists argue that since about 1973 the real wages earned by middle-class Americans haven’t risen much and, for many workers, have actually declined. Young couples talk of not being able to afford what their parents had. By contrast, conservative economists contend that the rate of inflation as calculated by the federal government has been overstated and, therefore, that real wages have risen considerably. But one thing is incontestable: We have a lot more stuff and much higher material expectations than previous generations did.

  STARTER CASTLES

  Take housing, for example. The average size of new homes is now more than double what it was in the 1950s, while families are smaller. LaNita Wacker, who owns Dream House Realty in Seattle, has been selling homes for more than a quarter of a century. She takes us on a drive through the neighborhoods near her office to explain what’s happened.

  She shows us houses built during every decade since World War II and describes how they’ve gotten bigger and bigger. Right after World War II, Wacker points out, 750 square feet was the norm (in Levittown, for example). “Then in the ’50s,” she says, “they added 200 square feet, so 950 was the norm. By the ’60s, 1,100 square feet was typical, and by the ’70s, 1,350. Now it’s 2,300.” Beginning with the recession in 2000, the average new house size stabilized at 2,320 feet, but larger sizes can be expected when the next round of prosperity arrives.

  Wacker started selling homes in 1972, “right about the time we moved from a single bath to the demand for a double bath.”3 Two-car garages came in then, too, and by the late ’80s many homes were being built with three-car garages. That’s 600 to 900 square feet of garage space alone, “as much square footage as an entire family used in the early ’50s,” Wacker says. “It would house an entire family. But we have acquired a lot of stuff to store.”

  To drive the point home, Wacker takes us by a huge home with a four-car garage. Expensive cars and a boat are parked outside. The owner comes out wondering why she is so interested in his place. “I own Dream House Realty,” she says. “And yours is a dream house.” “It was built to the specifications of my charming wife,” the man replies with a laugh. “So why four garages?” asks Wacker. “It’s probably because of storage,” the man replies, explaining that the garage is filled with family possessions. “You never have enough storage, so you can never have enough garages,” he adds cheerfully. Wacker asks if he has children. “They’re gone now,” he replies. “It’s just me and the wife.”

  The four-car garage is an exception, no doubt. But everyone expects larger homes now. “A master bedroom in the ’50s would be about 130 square feet,” explains Wacker. “Now, even in moderately priced homes, you’re talking about maybe 300 square feet devoted to the master bedroom.”

  More than ever, homes have become a symbol of conspicuous consumption, as beneficiaries of the ’90s stock market boom began in many communities to buy real estate, bulldoze existing (and perfectly functional) homes, and replace them with megahouses of 10,000 square feet and more. “Starter castles,” some have named them. Others call them monster homes.

  On America’s Streets of Dreams, the competition is fierce. McMansions. . . Double McMansions. . . Deluxe McMansions. . . Deluxe McMansions with Cheese. . . Full Garage Deals. . . each one a little bigger and glitzier, popping up like mushrooms in a frenzy of home wars. In places like the spectacular mountain towns of the West
, many such megahomes are actually second homes, mere vacation destinations for the newly rich.

  BETTER THAN TAIL FINS

  A similar story presents itself with automobiles. In 1957, when Ford had a better idea called the Edsel, cars were big and chromey, but they were far from the sophisticated machines we drive today. A 1960 Ford commercial shows crowds of people admiring the new Fairlane, Thunderbird, and Falcon, surrounded by twinkling stars as if touched by Tinkerbell. It is, the ad proclaims, “the Wonderful New World of Ford.” But in that wonderful new world, much of what we now take for granted as standard automobile features wasn’t available even in luxury models.

  In 1960, for example, fewer than 5 percent of new cars had air conditioning. Now more than 90 percent do. Mike Sillivan, a veteran Toyota salesman in Seattle, says that “today, people’s expectations are much higher. They want amenities—power steering, power brakes as standard, premium sound systems.”4 The car of today is a different animal from that of a generation ago. It’s filled with computer technology. And, after a hiatus following the “energy crisis” of the mid-1970s, big is back.

  Until recently, gasoline costs for Americans were at an all-time low in real dollar terms. Worries about fuel efficiency were forgotten as we bought gas-guzzling four-wheel-drive wagons called sport-utility vehicles (some call these suburban assault vehicles; others use the term “axles of evil”). In the late ’90s half of all new cars sold were SUVs and light trucks, exempted from federal fuel-efficiency standards. Roomy, comfy, and costly, SUVs just keep getting bigger.

  CAR WARS

  Until 2000, the eighteen-foot-long Chevy Suburban set the standard for gigantism. Then, not to be outdone, Ford introduced the Excursion, a 7,000-pound titan that is a foot longer than the Suburban. Ford Motors chairman William Ford even apologized for making so many SUVs, calling his Excursion “the Ford Valdez” for its propensity to consume fuel. He condemned SUVs as wasteful and polluting, but said Ford would continue to manufacture them anyway because they were extremely profitable.

  “For a lot of people an SUV is a status symbol,” says car salesman Sillivan. “So they’re willing to pay the thirty- to forty-odd thousand dollars to drive one of these vehicles.”

  Never one to give up without a fight, General Motors has come charging back at Ford, acquiring ownership of the Hummer, a more luxurious version of the military transport vehicle used during the Gulf War. GM is “placing a big bet that the decade-long trend toward ever larger and more aggressive-looking sport utility vehicles would continue,” according to the New York Times5. “It’s like a tank with fashion,” says one teenager quoted by the Times. The kid says he loves the Hummer because “I like something where I can look down into another car and give that knowing smile that says ‘I’m bigger than you.’ It makes me feel powerful.” More than a foot wider than the Excursion, the Hummer retails for more than $100,000. GM predicts these behemoths will be especially popular in (we are not making this up) Manhattan, which is probably a good thing because you need to be on the viewing platform of the Empire State Building to see over them.

  A Hummer dealer Web site (www.lynchhummer.com), features a link to “Stupid Hummer Tricks.” The link offers photos of, among other things, a Hummer in a standoff against a buffalo, another proudly knocking aside trees as it plows up an incline in a forest, and a third nearly submerged in a pretty mountain stream. Now what will Ford counter with, an even bigger SUV called the Extinction?

  WEIGHTLESS TOURISM

  Hummers on the streets of Manhattan. You might call them Saddam’s revenge. Or Ho-Hummers, if you compare them with yet another way to drop big bucks.

  In 2001, American Dennis Tito became the world’s first space tourist, for only $20 million. The next year, South African Mark Shuttleworth followed, for the same price.6 In June 2004 SpaceShipOne took off on its first flight, rising sixty-two miles above Earth and entering officially into space.7 Soon, seats will be available for as little as $100,000.

  If that sounds like a deal, you might want to stick a thermometer in your mouth right away. Ten. . . nine. . . eight. . . .

  LET’S DO LUNCH

  We’ve talked about houses and cars. Now consider food. The ’50s did give us TV dinners. Turkey, peas, and mashed potatoes in a throwaway tray for sixty-nine cents: thank you, Swanson’s. As kids, we considered them delectable. Our standard diets were pretty bland. Exotic meant soggy egg rolls, chow mein, and chop suey. Mexican was tacos and tamales. (How did we cope without chimichangas and chalupas?) Thai wasn’t even part of our vocabulary. Now, city streets and even suburban malls sport a United Nations of restaurants. We remember waiting for certain fruits and vegetables to be in season. Now, there is no season; everything is always available. When it’s winter here, it’s summer in New Zealand, after all. Yet we often feel deprived. Strawberries lose their flavor when you can have them all the time. More food choices certainly aren’t a bad thing, but they come at a cost. The exotic quickly becomes commonplace and boring, requiring ever newer and more expensive menus.

  Take coffee. Until recently, we took it as watery brown stuff made bearable by gobs of sugar. Now, specialty coffees are everywhere. NPR radio host Scott Simon was surprised some years ago when he stopped at a service station in rural Washington state. In the station’s mini-mart was an espresso stand with so many types of coffee drinks that Simon wanted an Italian dictionary to identify them. No need. The kid behind the counter with his baseball cap on backward knew them all.

  Eating out used to be a special occasion. Now we spend more money on restaurant food than on the food we cook ourselves. Swelling expectations. Swelling stomachs too, but that’s another symptom.

  INVENTION IS THE MOTHER OF NECESSITY

  Consider, also, the kinds of goods that were deemed luxuries as recently as 1970 but are now found in well over half of U.S. homes and thought of by a majority of Americans as necessities: dishwashers, clothes dryers, central heating and air conditioning, color and cable TV.8 And back in 1970, there were no microwave ovens, VCRs, CD players, cell phones, fax machines, compact discs, leaf blowers, Xbox games, or personal computers. The use of cell phones has more than doubled the amount Americans spend on phone service in the past ten years.9 Now, more than half of us take these goods for granted and would feel deprived without them. Well, OK, so maybe you wouldn’t feel deprived without Xbox. Meanwhile, consumption of electricity has jumped nearly 50 percent. It takes a lot of energy to run all this stuff.

  There always seems to be a “better” model that we’ve just gotta have. Writing in 2000 about Compaq’s then-new iPaq 3600 Pocket PC, Seattle Times technology reporter Paul Andrews warned that the iPaq, with its “sleek Porsche-like case and striking color screen,” cost $500 more than an ordinary PalmPilot. “But without the color display, music, and photos of the iPaq, life seems pretty dull,” he lamented.10

  And take travel. We drive twice as much per capita as we did a half century ago, and fly an amazing twenty-five times as much.11 Middle-income Americans seldom ventured more than a few hundred miles from home then, even during two-week summer vacations. Now, many of us (not just the rich) expect to spend occasional long weekends in Puerto Vallarta, or (in the case of New Yorkers) in Paris. Everywhere, humble motels have been replaced by elegant “inns,” humble resorts by Club Med. Now, “I need a vacation” means I need to change continents for a few days.

  THE CHANGING JONESES

  “Greed has infected our society. It is the worst infection,” says the real Patch Adams, the doctor portrayed by Robin Williams in a Hollywood film.12 He’s right only to a degree. It may be fear rather than greed that primarily drives our swelling expectations. Fear of not succeeding in the eyes of others. In one magazine ad from the ’50s, readers are encouraged to “keep up with the Joneses” by driving what that family is driving: a Chevy. A Chevy sedan at that, not a Corvette. Just about the cheapest car around, even then.

  But the mythical Joneses don’t drive Chevrolets anymore. And they�
�re no longer your next-door neighbors either, folks who make roughly what you do. Sociologist Juliet Schor studied people’s attitudes about consumption in a large corporation and found that most Americans compare themselves with co-workers or television characters when they think about what they “need.”

  But corporations have become increasingly stratified economically. One frequently comes into contact with colleagues much better paid than oneself. Their cars, clothes, and travel plans reflect their higher incomes, yet set the standards for everyone else in the firm.

  Likewise, says Schor, “TV shows a very inflated standard of living relative to what the true standard of living of the American public is. People on television tend to be upper middle class or even rich, and people who watch a lot of TV have highly inflated views of what the average American has. For example, people who are heavy TV watchers vastly exaggerate the number of Americans with swimming pools, tennis courts, maids, and planes, and their own expectations of what they should have also become inflated, so they tend to spend more and save less.”13

  Schor says that as the gap between rich and poor grew during the 1980s, people with relatively high incomes began to feel deprived in comparison to those who were suddenly making even more. “They started to feel ‘poor on $100,000 a year’ as the well-known phrase puts it, because they were comparing themselves to the Donald Trumps and the other newly wealthy.” It happened all the way down the income line, Schor says. “Everybody felt worse compared to the role models, those at the top.” By the late ’90s, polls showed that Americans believed they needed $75,000 (for a family of four) to lead a “minimum” middle-class life.