Suze Orman channels Ben Franklin

I saw Suze Orman, the financial guru with the butch haircut, declare on TV that the American Dream was dead. Sorry Thomas Jefferson. Using her blend of simpleminded and unsophisticated language (she is not a trained economist) she claimed that the new American Dream is peace of mind and frugality, a page from Poor Richard’s Almanack. A penny saved is a penny earned. Waste not, want not.
I can’t disagree with her although it does dispense with one of the tenets of bourgeois living, namely the materialist urge which provided the incentive for work.
So, who will survive the slump? Significant shifts in economic power are here already. The Chinese are buying Buicks hand over fist. We’re vulnerable because of our dependence on oil and the bite it takes out of our disposable incomes. Save money? Fiscal sociology is the central feature of a modern political economy. We’re a consumer society. As Marx said in The Communist Manifesto, “ the bourgeoisie has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all previous generations together.” Poor Karl can’t get no respect from Americans.
Who would put themselves in hock for a Cadillac today? Who wouldn’t scissor their credit cards with their cunning fine print and never-ending fees? But that’s the problem. Western society is dependent on wants and the squander of resources on needless products of status and display. The New York ad agency Young & Rubicam once said: “All you NEED is a cave, a fire and a piece of meat”. So much for needs in a society dependent on wants and a multitude of products for status and display.
In my blog of Nov. 8. 2010 I quoted Marx, Veblen and others who don’t have TV shows. Orman wouldn’t know Keir Hardie from Andy Hardy so she can’t enunciate classical or modern economic theory. As McLuhan says, television pollutes the thought environment. She runs a “helpful hints” column, a Penny wise and Pound foolish approach. It’s somewhat like the fortune cookie I got this week that said wisely, “Look to your inner being for guidance”. Indeed I shall. Still, I suppose she is trying to help the poor middle class get back on its feet. People who have lost their jobs, lost most of their home equity, their savings and their hope can use a little feelgood talk. I’ll even chip in with some useful advice of my own: give up valet parking and watch those pennies add up!