Losing The Habit: We Will Not Return To The Consumer Economy.

Loved this little paragraph today on “extend and pretend”. Although I can’t remember where I found it.

The government has been playing “extend-and-pretend” based entirely on the idea that pent up demand in consumers would grow until it busted out and the recovery would be on – [a recovery] fueled by consumers. What has happened is the exact opposite. This is very serious. We are running into 3 years now, and 4 if you look at what commodity speculation did to consumers starting back in early 2007. …. And so the concern should be whether or not we have a permanent shift in consumer behaviors. Three or four years is plenty of time to break old habits and establish new ones.

Three weeks and you can develop a new habit. Nine months and you can change your system of habits. Three years and you can forget what life was like in the past. In four years you can even forget a bad divorce, death or tragedy.

The bonds that create an economy are perishables. People forget. They forget skills, relationships, ambitions, ways of thinking. They forget.