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Jewish World Review May 19, 2005 / 10 Iyar, 5765 Buying American is darn near impossible; how will we live out of balance? By Karen Heller
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Alan Greenspan visits my dreams. He appears to me more frequently than
perhaps is healthy. Several times I swore I saw the Fed chairman with a
beer on the beach. Many people nurse rich fantasy lives. Mine involves
Alan Greenspan.
So I listen to him. When he worries about the $61 billion trade
imbalance, I worry, too, rationally and exuberantly.
Greenspan and other experts observe that since the dollar is worth squat
and a euro could buy a Missouri pig farm, we'll purchase fewer imports
while our trade partners buy American gewgaws.
Ideal, but what goods?
What does America produce besides import-adoring Americans?
We may be invaded by a horde of French come summer, but only so they can
buy their stuff at reduced prices. Laugh, but New York stores already
reported this happening at Christmas.
Try spending a day, as I did, consuming American. Unless you're a
Luddite sustainable nudist farmer, it can't be done.
Right off the bat, you're looking at a vast desert of denial and one
extended foul mood.
Coffee is from elsewhere except Hawaiian, the price per pound rivaling
platinum. Milk's domestic, but most sugar is foreign, the only
alternative being chemical substitutes that I've long suspected are
candied hazmats.
What to wear? Most shoes, cheap or prohibitive, are made offshore.
Nothing could be more American than the Gap, except it isn't, almost all
of its goods produced overseas.
If only one could invest in jean futures, and their wifty koan names
(Citizens for Humanity, 7 for All Mankind, True Religion), their prices
escalating with importance because, as any fashionista can tell you, the
best jean dye processes are coming from overseas, specifically Japan.
Because nobody does American like Asia.
America long led the world in exporting culture, but even that is
becoming debatable, the Japanese besting us with anime, Hong Kong
martial-arts movies shaming our car crashes and Tarantino rip-offs, the
Japanese kids being the earliest adopters of everything. They shop
better than us.
Now we're down to exporting "culture," represented by movie stars, junk
food so other countries' waistlines match ours, casual togs that look
American but are manufactured there, the idea of Americanness more
prevalent than the products.
Try getting to work by buying solely American. Many cars are made here,
even a good portion of those with foreign names, but forget about the
oil that fuels them, which comes from countries whose politics range
from questionable to wretched.
You cannot turn on the television because, while the shows are domestic
(though many star English and Australian actors feigning American),
virtually none of the sets are made here. Same for other electronic
toys, which have a way of procreating like bunnies.
It has become as difficult for Americans to buy domestic as it is for
most of them to save, so the money keeps pouring in one direction -
outward bound.
Most of what we create is conceptual, information, buzz and choice.
We're down to performance-art industries with little sticking power.
Soon, as the baby boom knows all too well, we'll be good at creating
something else: old people. Some folks will be better at contributing to
the workforce than others, who will be spending their capital largely on
the world's costliest care.
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And this is why I dream of Greenspan. It's hard to balance an economy
based on ether. Somewhere in this mess there must be smarter people
thinking about what happens to an aging nation with an inability to
save, hooked as we are on an ever-increasing river of imported stuff.
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Karen Heller is a columnist for Philadelphia Inquirer. Comment by clicking here. © 2005, The Philadelphia Inquirer Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services. |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
