By Dave Anderson:
Most people say they want to lose weight. Most people say they want to save more money. Most people say they want to eat better food. Most people say they want Congress to cut out "pork."
Reuters via TPM writes about a poll that measures individuals' intentions to change spending behaviors:
About 63 percent of Americans polled said the way they spend and save has "forever changed" due to the downturn. Only 29 percent said they would go back to their previous patterns of spending and saving....
Citi surveyed 2,005 adults nationally between September 1 and September 5. The survey has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points.
Most people say these things, but they seldom happen. Intentions are all well and good, but unless those intentions translate into behavior, there is not a whole lot of anything going on. I am skeptical at this time to believe that the American consumer will permanently change our behavioral patterns once household balance sheets are cleaned up because it is easier to continue on the current course rather than changing course.
Right now the entire economic policy of the Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats is to curb some, not all, but some of the most obvious excesses while assuming that the economic system of the past thirty years is fundamentally sound and sustainable. That might work if one believes things are fundamentally sound and all that is needed is clean-up on Aisle 5, but it is a problem if one believes that the system is fundamentally creaky and tottering under its own contradictions.
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