Since I share my home with a couple of dogs, I tend to wear out a pair of shoes each year. I usually notice I need new shoes in the rainy season (which is most of the year in Oregon) when I come home with wet feet. But, according to Allison Schrager of the Manhattan Institute, I should just suck it up and learn to live with less.
Apparently, it’s a bad thing that Americans can buy “whatever they want whenever they want.” Schrager finds it alarming that 40 percent of American households have three or more televisions, “including 30 percent of households earning less than $40,000 a year!” Similarly worrisome, to her, is that 30 percent of Americans have 2 or more refrigerators. Just think of how horrifying it must have been for her to discover that some low-income people probably have both three televisions and two refrigerators!
The Manhattan Institute claims to be a “free-market think tank” that supports “greater economic choice.” But you wouldn’t know it to read Schrager’s article, which states that we need to live more like Europeans, meaning consuming less and living with lower economic growth. This is because, she claims, “An economy based on consumption is not sustainable.” Continue reading
