Free The Leading Indicators by Gregg Easterbrook Page B

sounded a bit like low-fat bacon. The label proclaimed the bread to be Soft ’N’ Hearty and declared the product possessed Fresh Baked Taste. Not that the bread was fresh baked; rather, it had fresh-baked taste. Perhaps there was no meaningful difference between being fresh and tasting fresh. Products on grocers’ shelves now say things like MADE FROM REAL POTATOES. And “real potatoes” differ from “potatoes” … how, exactly?
    Tom felt self-conscious about shopping at 7-Eleven and paying the price of convenience. “Now I notice the people who frequent convenience stores,” he said. “They arrive in brand-new monster-sized pickup trucks with all the options; that can’t have been a smart decision. People who should not be blowing five bucks on a travel-sized laundry detergent, they should be buying the jumbo size in a regular store and getting thirty washes for the same price. But they’re too disorganized to shop properly, or to think more than a couple loads of laundry ahead. The kind of petty blunders they make at the 7-Eleven symbolize the other decisions that hold them back in life, like impulse marriages or runaway credit-card debt. And the store itself—the marketing, it’s designed to cause you to make petty blunders.”
    â€œI can see stopping at a 7-Eleven if you need to pick up milk or a candy bar,” Lillian said. “Otherwise one does not belong in such places.”
    â€œI feel I do now, somehow,” Tom said.
    Margo was talking on her cell to Caroline, who was at a birthday party; Megan was at a different birthday party, on the opposite end of the county. Often Margo talked to her girls for longer periods by phone than when they were in the same room.
    â€œI’m trying to pay for things like groceries with cash; it’s more disciplined than using a card,” Tom told Lillian. “There is too much credit-card debt!” He said this too strongly for a casual conversation. “Even these smooth-looking professional couples who come into the store, they want home Jacuzzis or a built-in gas fireplace on time. I take their credit statements. They have five cards maxed out and they’re looking for fresh credit. Usually they get it.”
    Margo had finished talking to Caroline and listened to the last few statements. “People make mistakes with money because it’s so easy to,” she supposed. “Imagine if you could have all the sex you wanted right now, delivered with a friendly smile, and you just had to sign a piece of paper acknowledging you were warned there would be complications later.”
    â€œI’d sign!” Lillian said brightly.
    â€œCredit cards are like that,” Margo said. “You can have the tennis bracelet or the Rolex right now, tonight, and being able to buy it feels like an achievement. Later when the bill arrives you think it’s somehow unfair you have to pay, because you’ve already lost interest in whatever you bought.” Margo had noticed the girls talked with keen anticipation about material things they wanted—types of phones, brands of clothes. Once the desired item was obtained, they lost interest and began speaking of the next thing wished for.
    â€œMy theory,” Lillian said, “is that people buy what they can’t afford because subconsciously they believe they will die anyway before the debts add up.” Tom shot her a look, though neither woman noticed.
    Margo had enjoyed the years in which Tom’s rising income allowed her to purchase that which she didn’t need. But she was also aware that simply buying what strikes one’s fancy, without any long-term plan for lean times, is not wise for a family, let alone a nation.
    â€œIf buying on debt gets you what you want, many people don’t think beyond that,” she said. “Walk into a showroom and sign some forms, they give you a bedroom set. The consequences