Desperational Shopper

I listened to a retail analyst's voicemail on Monday. She said that the U.S. consumer has moved from being 'aspirational' to 'desperational'. That's such a funny word 'desperational'. Her pitch is that in this environment stores like Walmart and Dollar Stores sales should benefit from this shift and Nordstrom and Saks 5th Avenue should suffer.

I wonder how long this shift will last?

For years most Americans have lived beyond their means. Will this current pile of muck change the way we shop as a nation? In the long term no. As soon as consumers have access to credit again we're back to the keeping up with the Jones' lifestyle. Because the drive to attain the American Dream of lots of stuff is bigger than the fear of eating cat food when we're 80.

One of my favorite bumper stickers of all time was "Question Consumption". I thought about buying one and then didn't because it seemed counter to the whole "question consumption" plea.