I’m more than a week late in pointing out Roger Lowenstein’s interesting article for the Times Mag about oil and oil prices, but if you’re interested in the subject, I recommend it. In addition to explaining oil-price fluctuations more clearly than I’ve seen anybody else do it, he has some great forward-looking points.
Back when oil prices were first soaring past $125 a barrel and George Soros was blaming speculators, I started to write a post here saying I hope he’s wrong because the high price (while it seemed illogically overdone to me) was clearly focusing attention on sustainable oil alternatives, etc. I never finished writing it because, ultimately, the post I conceived sort of depended on the idea that oil prices could seriously collapse, which just seemed so outlandish to me at the time I didn’t see the point.
Anyway, so here’s Lowenstein — a writer I have a ton of respect for, very smart and very lucid — making a more sophisticated version of that point. Instead of thinking about popular opinion as a lever on policymakers, as I was, he’s thinking private industry. Basically, there’s a relationship between the price of oil and the incentives for investing in alternatives to it: “When you ask economists what the minimum oil price is to sustain the development of alternatives to gasoline — new battery systems or sugar ethanol or even wood chips — you get a range of something like $75 a barrel to maybe $150.”
Lowenstein doesn’t come out totally against oil, what he’s making a point about is oil dependence, and in what it takes to inspire companies to make the necessary investments that could lead not just to new oil reserve discovers, but to completely new alternatives.
It would be a tragedy if falling prices were to extinguish such alternatives and — given the time lag inherent in energy development — leave the country vulnerable to a yet another round of shocks… .
What the country doesn’t want is to remain dependent only on oil — to lose the urgency to develop alternatives. It happened once before. After the gas lines of the ’70s, Jimmy Carter declared that solving our energy problems was the moral equivalent of war. Then, in the 1980s, Americans forgot.
He closes by suggesting (in a revival of a Gerald Ford idea) a tax that would kick in if oil fell below $70 a barrel — basically setting a floor.
Interestingly, when the piece was written, oil was at around $80 a barrel. Today it’s at around $63.
TOP YELLER:
The enduring appeal of the pitchman.
Today in Consumed, a look at the appeal of one of TV’s most ubiquitous sellers.
Much more interesting than the unlikely merchandise he booms on about is the boomer himself. With his slicked-back hair, beard and thunderclap voice, he begins most of his many two-minute spots by proclaiming: “Hi! Billy Mays here!” Usually declarations like this are reserved for those whose achievements or fame in some other corner of culture (movies, sports, reality television) are being leveraged on behalf of a product. Mays is a celebrity endorser whose celebrity is based entirely on having endorsed things.
Read the column in the October 26, 2008, issue of The New York Times Magazine, or here.
Bonus link: BillyMaysRules.com.
Consumed archive is here, and FAQ is here. The Times’ Consumed RSS feed is here. Consumed Facebook page is here.
To make a point about Consumed that you think readers of The Times Magazine would be interested in: “Letters should be addressed to Letters to the Editor, Magazine, The New York Times, 620 Eighth Avenue, 6th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10018. The e-mail address is magazine@nytimes.com. All letters should include the writer’s name, address and daytime telephone number. We are unable to acknowledge or return unpublished letters. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.”
I don’t want make too much of this, but it’s interesting that as retail sales and consumer spending have fallen, and, you know, media coverage of the economy has basically devolved into one extended freakout, Etsy says its sales have continued to rise.
- $7.93 million of goods sold — a 5% increase over August.
- That represents 544,157 items sold, a 5.3% increase from August’s stats.
Interesting. Etsy’s not exactly positioned as a bargain-hunting site. Maybe all it means is that its in a growth phase, being still relatively small, that would be pronounced in a more optimistic economy. Or maybe it means that “handmade” stuff is holding onto value in consumer minds that more mass goods are not holding onto.
The latter theory reminds me of something I read the other day on the Greenjeans blog, which asked, “Is ‘handwashing’ the new greewashing?” Basically this refers to making stuff look handmade.
I wonder if I didn’t see a hint of the next big marketing trend today on the cover of the graphic design magazine HOW: “Incorporating Handmade Elements.” They actually call it “Design 2.0” suggesting the techie look is out and the handmade look is in.
Greenjeans’ Amy Shaw continues:
I think perhaps because handmade makes us feel safe, and makes huge corporations seem kinder and gentler. And in today’s struggling economy, those companies that can make consumers feel warm and fuzzy will have a huge advantage.
Maybe this helps explain Etsy resilience? If so, then perhaps there’s more “handwashing” to come. . .
The Mongols Motorcycle Club, or Mongols MC, is based in southern California. It has an estimated 1,000 members, and it has a logo.
A trademarked logo.
According to the U.S. government, it’s also a criminal organization, engaged in everything from drug trafficking to murder; 79 members were named in a recent racketeering indictment.
Yesterday, the government also had a bit of success in a different avenue it is pursuing vis a vis the Mongols MC:
U.S. District Court Judge Florence-Marie Cooper on Wednesday granted an injunction that prohibits gang members, their family members and associates from wearing, licensing, selling or distributing the logo, which typically depicts the profile of a Mongolian warrior wearing sunglasses.
According to the AP, this is “believed to be the first case in the nation in which the government has sought to take control of a gang’s identity — via its logo — through a court order.”
The upshot, as I understand it from the story, is that anything with a Mongols MC logo on it is now subject to seizure. I gather that the “club” or “gang” or whatever it is did in fact go through the legal steps to trademark its logo. But now that logo is, in effect, illegal.
UPDATE: I see now that Counterfeit Chic had a similar item two days ago, and has more, here. Cites an L.A. Times article explaining that the plan involves “the government [taking] over ownership of the trademark,” which would allow the seizures. I wonder if it would also allow them to cut some licensing deals!
[Thx: Harold C.]
Latest editions to the linkroll at right follow. I’m going to try to do this once a month.
First: My Etsy store. Filed under Solipsism in the sidebar.
Next up are three additions to the Bigshot category:
* Joseph Nocera’s blog on the NYT site: Executive Suite. Mr. Nocera is someone I really admire.
* James Surowiecki’s blog on the New Yorker site: The Balance Sheet. I’m surprised at how long it’s taken for this to happen. Mr. Suroweicki was writing online for Motley Fool before any of you had ever heard the word “blog.” That’s because the word hadn’t been coined yet.
* Steven Heller’s blog on the Print Magazine site, The Daily Heller: You already know all about Steve Heller. Nice guy, interesting blog.
And there’s more. Under Hard To Categorize:
Book Of Joe. I thought this was already in the linkroll, but it wasn’t. Check it out.
Under Critiques:
Public Ad Campaign.
Under Artists:
Michael A. Salter, maker of styrobots.
Ernie Button, particularly the Cerealism series.
Steve Schofield.
Little People, “A Tiny Street Art Project.”
And finally, in the the Design/Style/Aesthetics category:
The DieLIne.com
DC Goodwill Fashionista. More about this later.
The other day I noted the brand name-drops in a Times story about “Palin dudes” — Carhartt, John Deere. But what about Palin and her family? Politico offers some information, not so much about brands but at least about favored retail destinations:
The Republican National Committee has spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.
According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.
The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September. …
September payments were also made to Barney’s New York ($789.72) and Bloomingdale’s New York ($5,102.71).
The entries also show a few purchases at Pacifier, a top notch baby store, and Steiniauf & Stroller Inc., suggesting $295 was spent to accommodate the littlest Palin to join the campaign trail.
An additional $4,902.45 was spent in early September at Atelier, a high-class shopping destination for men.
Stimulating the economy, y’all.
So from everything I have read, Joe The Plumber would not, in fact, be fiscally penalized by an Obama administration. He does not actually, as he has conceded, make $250,000 a year. The plumbing business he supposedly wants to buy almost certainly does not net $250,000 a year. And in any case, his purchase of that business appears to be a pure hypothetical. If anything, it is likely that voting for Obama would be in Joe’s economic self interest: Joe himself admits that unless Obama is lying about his plans, “I would be receiving his tax cuts.”
This raises some questions. For starters, what is Joe’s problem? Is he stupid? Is he a Republican plant? Is he motivated by some other issue that has nothing to do with this?
Well, anything is possible. But I think Joe may be acting in the interest not of himself, but of a theoretical future self. When Joe told Obama “I’m being taxed more and more for fulfilling the American dream,” he was, objectively speaking, wrong. He is not being taxed more and more, because he is not fulfilling the American dream.
He is dreaming the American dream. And as it happens, there’s no charge for that. But while Joe would not be penalized by Obama’s proposed tax hikes, his theoretical future self — Dream Joe, let’s call him — would.
Or might be, if Dream Joe comes true. Of course Actual Joe is a true American, and believes that Dream Joe will inevitably merge with Actual Joe; it’s only a matter of time. So that was Dream Joe talking to Obama.
Anyway, the absurd Joe spectacle has me thinking about a bit from a recent George Packer New Yorker camapaign article. The article had Packer traveling around economically beaten-down areas talking politics, and the relevant passage deals with Thomas Frank’s What’s The Matter With Kansas, and that book’s thesis: Working-class people vote against their economic self-interest for cultural reasons that have been seized on and amplified by conservative politicians.
I’ll put the whole passage after the jump, but basically Packer summarizes research by some sociologists which suggested that working-class voters who used to see the Democratic party as a protector of their economic security started drifting away in the 1970s, not because of cultural issues, but precisely because in their judgment the Democratic party had lost the ability to protect that economic security — or their “material well-being,” as the study’s authors put it. After all, unions were dying out, jobs were going overseas, and these workers were increasingly on their own.
“Working-class whites, their fortunes falling, began to embrace the anti-government, low-tax rhetoric of the conservative movement,” Packer writes. (The cultural factors Frank cites kicked in later, according to this argument. See the whole passage for more.)
To this I’d just add one more layer, which will bring us back to the likes of Joe. The anti-government, low-tax rhetoric that Packer refers to — and that was perfected by Ronald Reagan, who managed to win the role of governing the citizenry in large part by arguing that government is the biggest problem citizens have — worked because it spoke to aspiration.
It was populist rhetoric, but it did turn not turn on class warfare. Indeed it did away with the idea that the Joe the Plumbers of the world resent the rich, and was rather premised on the insight that Joe the Plumber and his ilk want to be the rich. And in point of fact believes he ought to be rich, deserves to be rich. Taken to its extreme, this form of populist rhetoric is premised on class envy: Joe is as good as any of those fat-cat swells! What’s keeping him from being rich? The government! Outta the way, government!
Joe the Plumber identifies with that, even though, in real life, his “wealth” will not be “spread around” by an Obama government, or any government. Yet he is not interested in the best interest of Actual Joe; he is interested in the best interests of Dream Joe.
And he’s not alone. Which is why the McCain campaign has been attempting the neat rhetorical trick of suggesting that a tax increase for the top-earning 2% of Americans is actually a blow to the Joes of the world. Maybe I’ll say more about that tomorrow.
Extract from New Yorker article after the jump if you’re interested. Please continue…
The campaign wants “to hear from you and share your story with the American public. It’s simple … make an ad telling us why you are “Joe the Plumber” in 30 seconds and your video could end up on the air as a TV ad.”
- Be creative! The video that most effectively tells why you are Joe the Plumber will be featured in a TV ad.
- Tell us why you are like Joe the Plumber.
- How would Barack Obama’s plan to “Spread the Wealth Around” hurt you?
Etc.
Details here. Via The Stump.
“Their four sons often sleep huddled together to pool body heat.”
That’s from a Times Style section story, referring to a couple going to extremes to reduce their carbon footprint; it’s a trend story kind of thing, about hardcore eco-types.
Some people may view [them] as role models, pioneers who will lead us to a cleaner earth. Others may see them as colorful eccentrics, people with admirable intentions who have arrived at a way of life close to zealotry. To others they come across as “energy anorexics,” obsessing over personal carbon emissions to an unhealthy degree, the way crash dieters watch the bathroom scale.
To me this story made such people seem more or less like a freak show. I wonder about stories like this, if their net impact isn’t to make the whole notion of changing your lifestyle in “green” ways seem like a marginal, vaguely comical pursuit — something other people do.
Brand cameos of the day, from NYT front-page story on “Palin Dudes”:
“I feel like I’m at home,” [Sarah] Palin said, looking out at a boisterous crowd of about 6,000. “I see the Carhartts and the steel-toed boots.”
And further down:
Yes, some men come to ogle the candidate, too. “She’s beautiful,” said a man wearing a John Deere T-shirt in Weirs Beach. “I came here to look at her,” he said, and his admiration for Ms. Palin’s appearance became more and more animated. Sheepish over his ogling, he declined to give his real name (“Just call me ‘John Deere’ ”).
Earlier Murketing post on consumption and political identity here. Consumed on what Palin rocks — Kazuo Kawasaki 704s — here.
PAINTING BY NUMBERS:
Pricing is an art — or at least these artists have turned it into one.
This week in Consumed, an experiment in the meaning of prices and objects by Justin Gignac and Christine Santora:
The couple — art directors in the advertising business in New York — wanted to work together on a creative project. Part of their motivation was to make a little extra money, and talking about what they might do with it, Santora says, led them to the strategy of “why don’t we just be totally transparent?” If they wanted to make enough to buy a plate of buffalo wings at Le Figaro Cafe (now defunct) on Bleecker Street, they would render a plate a buffalo wings and charge $12.70. If they wanted a Wii, they would paint one and charge $270.92.
Read the column in the October 19, 2008, issue of The New York Times Magazine, or here.
The Wants For Sale site is here; Needs For Sale is here. Earlier Murketing post about Gignac is here.
Consumed archive is here, and FAQ is here. The Times’ Consumed RSS feed is here. Consumed Facebook page is here.
To make a point about Consumed that you think readers of The Times Magazine would be interested in: “Letters should be addressed to Letters to the Editor, Magazine, The New York Times, 620 Eighth Avenue, 6th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10018. The e-mail address is magazine@nytimes.com. All letters should include the writer’s name, address and daytime telephone number. We are unable to acknowledge or return unpublished letters. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.”
Los Angeles Times on the latest in branded entertainment:
One such show, “In the Motherhood,” was recently picked up by ABC for prime-time episodes this spring, making the jump from online to TV. “In the Motherhood,” created by Santa Monica agency Science + Fiction for clients Suave beauty products and phone company Sprint, starred some medium size talent, including Leah Remini, Chelsea Handler and Jenny McCarthy. Suave and Sprint were allowed to read over scripts and “make sure it didn’t conflict with the brand,” said Anita Newton, vice president of consumer marketing at Sprint.
Science + Fiction also produced the Web series “The Rookie,” a spinoff of Fox’s “24,” for Degree deodorant. The goal for that show: take all the “brand attributes” of Degree and infuse them into the show’s main character, says Kevin Townsend, founder of Science + Fiction. That doesn’t mean that viewers will see Degree get a plug in the webisodes. Rather, the show’s main character — an intelligence operative — embodies the brand’s image of a guy who is “young, ambitious and always looking for action,” explains Townsend….
This Friday, the agency premieres a new Web series, “Fearless,” on MSN, sponsored by Hummer. The show is about five strangers navigating their way through remote locations around the world. A Hummer certainly would be handy for that.
Mr. Nocera’s column today contains this passing assertion:
I contend that this financial crisis is going to cause an entire generation to become debt-averse, as our parents were after the Depression.
Possibly so. Here’s a bunch more debt/credit thinking:
Here, Virginia Postrel makes the case that “the expansion of consumer credit is one of the great economic achievements of the past century.”
Here, Michael Mandel of BusinessWeek and Johs Worsoe of Union Bank tell Marketplace that in recent years growth was too credit-driven and behavior change is necessary.
Here, Robert Reich argues the problem hasn’t been people living beyond their means via debt, it’s been stagnant wages forcing them to take on too much debt just to keep up. (Via Marginal Utility.)
Here, Virginia Prescott of public radio show Word of Mouth interviews the maker of a film called I.O.U.S.A, which argues “America must mend its spendthrift ways or face an economic disaster of epic proportions.”
UPDATE: One more note of interest on an NPR page, here: “Since 1970, consumption in the U.S. as a percentage of GDP has been at or above 64 percent. These levels are substantially higher than the rates for Germany and Japan.” That’s not a stat I knew.
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