By Dave Anderson:
Fools of Ourselves has a good observation about fashion this season:
With glimpses of fall fashion trickling into stores, it's become apparent that we're not going to be pulling out of the recession this season. Affluence is out. Want to purchase a jacket in a luxe brocade? You'll find them in funky neons rather than sophisticated jewel-tones, colours specifically chosen to degrade the luxury of the item, mocking the affluence originally intended for it.
Leggings returned full-force this year after disappearing following a heydey in the early 90s, perhaps because they're cheap and can be worn as a substitute for pants. (Not -- please -- not that they should be substituted for pants, or that they look good on anyone when worn this way -- just that they can be.) Goodbye, tweed trousers. Who needs to streamline her legs when unemployment has forced her to be more thrifty at the grocery store? Grab those leggings to show off those slimmer thighs!
Frugality and informal means of supply are back (as is 3rd best solutions and extended irony of affluence.) 2nd hand, thrift shops and consignment stores are booming right now in most areas as re-using and extending the lifespan of previously discardable items is now a neccessary life skill. People are shifting from the formal economy to either an inferior substitute or entering more areas of the gray economy.
The referee season is starting as well. High school sports refereeing (football excepted in Western PA) is a low skill job where the primary skills needed are an ability to take a massive amount of verbal abuse from both the ignorant and the informed, and an ability to stay awake in six meetings after you have paid your dues for the year. And yet it pays fairly well to very well if an individual's schedule is flexible.
For the past eighteen months, I had been expecting to see a significant increase in this very accessible part of the economy. I expected this as refereeing is a fairly easy source of additional income with relatively low barriers to entry. However the number of referees had stayed constant --- some people retired, some people came in, but there was not a flood of either new referees or previously inactive referees becoming active again.
The change finally occurred. My high school soccer referee group had its first organizational meeting last week. There were the normal retirements as peoples' knees gave out, their guts got too large, heart attacks occurred off the field, or they got bored/moved away. However new and re-activating referees swelled the ranks by a net of 20%. This is despite the fact that the high school season is now 10% shorter due to two games per team being cancelled as a cost-saving measure. People are flowing to where there is work and decent wages despite it being an objectively unpleasant job.
Frugality and resourcefulfullness are the new "It" thing in both consumption and employment.
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