heard on the news

Mervyn's filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection yesterday. The company is one of the latest victims of the economic downturn and the housing bubble. Mervyn's is a Bay Area (Hayward) department store, so considerable attention was paid to this fact. However what really interested me was a quote by a Mervyn's customer interviewed in the parking lot of a store. 

She said, " You know we used to have extra money and we would just go shopping, just for fun, just to see what was out there and what we could buy. We can't do that any longer with gas prices being so high and so much money needed for housing payments. Now we only buy things when we need them." 

And there you have it, consumerism defined. People are buying things they don't need for fun, entertainment. They go (I should say drive) to stores, wander around and look for things to get. Things they did not even know existed, let alone that they would need them. No surprise then that better than 90% of newly bought items end up in the garbage pile within 6 months. Got to make room for the new stuff. We did not need the old stuff in any case.

That, my friends, is the environmental disaster we are faced with. People consuming items for no reason. It matters very little if this good lady chooses paper or plastic, or even whether she brings her own shopping bag (which I doubt). She is wasting resources at a record clip.

The one redeeming factor here is that people do get a minimal amount of exercise. They walk around inside the store. And in doing so they probably also combat the boredom that has invaded their lives. Lives that are so empty they need to go out every weekend to see what they can buy to entertain themselves. It is truly a sad story.

I guess the downturn has its silver lining. By all means let's pray for higher gas prices.