From: punditster@gmail.com   
      
   On 2/7/2026 5:04 AM, Julian wrote:   
   > Even though Christmas is over, I’ve been thinking about the season just   
   > gone. There is a tradition of complaining about its commercialisation,   
   > portraying Christmas as a grotesque manifestation of consumer excess.   
   > But it’s strange to use our seasonal extravagance to attack consumer   
   > culture. That’s almost diametrically wrong. What Christmas really shows   
   > is that consumer capitalism is doing a cracking job: it’s the rest of   
   > the economy that’s a mess.   
   >   
   > Consider food. The median family today, even if they’d spent December   
   > shopping at Fortnum & Mason and Daylesford Organic, would have spent a   
   > lower proportion of their income on food than an equivalent family would   
   > spend just to survive in the 1970s. Most consumer durables have   
   > similarly plummeted in price. In 1973, when Wizzard first sang ‘I Wish   
   > It Could Be Christmas Every Day’, consumerism was gearing up to grant   
   > them their wish. So what went wrong?   
   >   
   > Well, just as everything we buy at Christmas was getting cheaper,   
   > housing started to become inordinately more expensive. If food prices   
   > had kept pace with house prices since the 1970s, six bananas would now   
   > cost £9.50. In 1973, a colour TV cost more than 10 per cent of average   
   > annual income; it’s now 0.8 per cent. A tumble dryer would have cost 3   
   > per cent of annual income; today it’s 0.7 per cent. Back then, food   
   > soaked up 31 per cent of annual expenditure rather than 13 per cent now.   
   > A new family car is about at parity. But the average home has risen from   
   > 371 per cent to 677 per cent of average income. We’re in a cost-of-   
   > housing crisis, not a cost-of-living crisis.   
   >   
   > And in reality it’s more extreme than this. A 2025 Kia is inordinately   
   > better than a 1973 Austin Allegro, to say nothing of improvements in   
   > consumer electronics. But cars and televisions tend to end up on the   
   > second-hand market, which further reduces instrumental wealth   
   > inequality. Put simply, many consumer goods invisibly benefit other,   
   > future, poorer people when you buy them. This is not true of housing.   
   >   
   > Have you ever heard anyone say, ‘We had a £900,000 house in Berkshire   
   > but after three years we sold it to a young couple for £450,000, because   
   > they needed a place to live’? You would think of those people as   
   > insanely altruistic. But that’s exactly what you are doing when you buy   
   > a new car only to sell it three years later for half the price. Buying a   
   > new Range Rover, a huge TV or a Mulberry bag is invisible socialism –   
   > stealth philanthropy. By contrast, if you spend your money decorating   
   > your dining room, you are spending it purely on yourself. There is a   
   > huge trickle-down effect when you buy a sports car or a jet ski. This is   
   > not true of housing, which is a trickle-up market.   
   >   
   > And then it struck me. This is a perfect moral justification for buying   
   > luxury goods rather than selfishly spending money on housing. Recently I   
   > had a small windfall, and my wife wanted to redecorate our bedroom,   
   > rebuilding the wardrobes and replacing the carpet. I had terrifying   
   > visions of three-line-whip visits to Farrow & Ball and discussions of   
   > colours barely distinguishable to the human eye. So I patiently   
   > explained that, as a man, the only reason I could ever conceive of to   
   > replace a carpet would be to remove forensic evidence. And then gently   
   > explained that spending money on a bedroom was an immoral and selfish   
   > act, since it would benefit no one but ourselves – it might even risk   
   > making our flat more expensive for anyone else to buy.   
   >   
   > So I went out and did the ethical thing. I bought a Lotus Eletre   
   > instead. Bright red, 600 bhp, LiDAR, 0-60 in 4.5 seconds, the works. In   
   > the long term, I’ll sell this to someone poorer than me – it’s really   
   > just time-delayed Marxism. And it’s a lot more fun than a carpet.   
   >   
   >   
   > Rory Sutherland   
    >   
   Finally, something interesting to read about. Thanks!   
      
   Me and Rita are interested in this subject, bedroom decor, and we've   
   discussed it for years. So, I don't usually sleep in a bedroom, I prefer   
   the couch in the den, but when I do, I prefer hardwood floors, like Oak   
   or maybe Canadian Maple; Rita like carpet.   
      
   So, we compromised and got an oriental design area rug. Nice!   
      
   We recently read Ginger Bakers book, "Hell Raiser" and apparently he   
   drove a Range Rover all over Africa for years. So, I figure maybe we   
   should get one too, and just bug out to Hood Mountain or Bodega. YMMV.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)