A Shopping-Free Christmas?

Public attitudes can change. The public went from green-indifferent to green-obssessed, smoker-dominated to smoker-shunned.

What if the public started realizing that $100+ jeans, shoes, gadgets, etc, were silly uses of money. that the momentary pleasure of their acquisition quickly fades into craving for yet more expensive silly stuff. Like a drug addict, it takes ever more to get that materialist's high. And ultimately, it often results in a crash, for example, when the spender or cash-cow spouse loses a job and can't pay the credit card bills, mortgage, or decides to divorce the spender, whereupon the shopaholic is left with a house of Gucci and a soul of emptiness.

What if the public realized that the money spent on designer-label frou frou might more wisely be spent on, for example, ensuring that there were six aides in every classroom, that every shut-in senior had a companion, that every person would be matched with a mentor? Would not America's Gross Domestic Happiness rise? Might not there be fewer people willing to commit ethical excesses so they could afford big-bucks accessories?

So in thinking about what Christmas gifts to buy, I commend these options to your attention:

• A donation to charity on behalf of the recipient. One approach: Give the person a check with the recipient line left blank. On an accompanying card, suggest that the person visit charitynavigator.org, which provides detailed information including efficiency on thousands of charities, arranged by category. If the recipient prefers to spend the money on him or herself, the person can write in their own name. Few people will.
• A gift certificate for one or more hours of your time to do whatever the recipient wishes: a massage, tutor their child, organize a messy room, etc.
• If you feel the need to buy a traditional gift, I recommend using amazon.com. It avoids your having to brave the traffic, find a parking spot, and fight the store crowds only to find they don't have what you want. And Amazon has every imaginable item, well categorized for easy finding, at competitive prices, with good customer service. Amazon even offers gift wrapping at much less cost than department store prices.

In case I decide to not post again until after Christmas, Hannukah, etc., have a restorative holiday. I hope you're finding my posts of value.

The Recession Can Actually Help You

American society has been built on the notion that you can spend your way to contentment. That has never been true, as most wealthy people will privately admit. They'll acknowledge they're on the hedonic treadmill, in which buying something new gives pleasure for an ever briefer time, forcing them to ever buy more and more expensive things to derive an ever briefer buyer's rush.

But now, the economy is not only in recession but has crushing structural problems:

• Massive deficits and unfunded liabilities such as the Medicare Monster.
• Poor ethics from top to bottom: from CEOs who encourage or condone ill-begotten profits to healthy workers who steal sick days, to priests who abuse parishioners, to students who cheat on tests (3/4 of high school and college students do.)
  
• Uncontrolled immigration.
• The growing trend to "redistributive justice," which reallocates resources from those most likely to boost the economy (businesses and above-average-income individuals) to society's lowest-achieving people. That short-term pleasure/long-term pain trend will only accelerate with a Democrat president. (Alas, I can't vote for an anti-choice, big-spending Republican. Where's a Philosopher King when you need one?)
  
• A badly dysgenic birth rate, in which the people likely to contribute least to society have the most children.
  
• Mixed-ability school classes ensuring racial equality but also that everyone learns less than they could and should.

Those factors combined with China and India's ascendancy will cause the U.S. economy to keep declining.

As a result, ever more Americans will be forced to find non-spending paths to contentment. My suggestions for the most likely sources of contentment:

• A mission--either in your career, avocation, or serving God. (I'm an atheist but I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that many people find great contentment in their religion.)
• A deep love--of a romantic partner, child, protege, or mentor.
• A consuming hobby: writing, participation in community theatre, gardening, music, art, etc.
• A determination to do as many good things as possible: random acts of kindness, uncommon courtesies, honesty when it benefits someone at your expense, etc.