"We interrupt this recession to bring you news of another crisis that is much more pleasant to deal with. Now that shoppers have sworn off credit cards, we’re risking an epidemic of a hitherto neglected affliction: saver’s remorse. "image and excerpt from: "Oversaving, a Burden for our Times,"
NYTimes Science section / John Tierney, March 23rd, 2009
I encourage everyone to examine this article, along with the "further readings" enlisted by the Times. The "empirical research"* carried out by these Harvard and Columbia consumer-psycho-analysts could not be clearer: in order to survive the recession we must pathologize conscientious consumer practices ("saving") as "hyperopic" (and from the image, hysteric) paranoid delusions carried out by hoarders of labor and reserve-capital...
More in-depth conspiracy-theory critique on the coalescence of consumer-market analysts, cognitive psychological research practices, and mass consumption after my senior project is due.
* "He and Dr. Keinan managed to change consumers’ behavior simply by asking a few questions to bus riders going to outlet stores and to other shoppers shortly before Black Friday."
--Is this what the professor of marketing at the Columbia Business School considers a controlled experiment?
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