Brian PrenticeWas it just me? Did anyone else notice that the defining experience of the credit boom was the mind-numbingly boring dinner conversation? Surely I wasn’t the only one enduring story after story of the latest home renovation, valuations of investment property portfolios, the status of junior’s private school enrolment and the relative merits of 4×4 vs. 2×4 transmissions.
If there’s a silver lining on this dark credit crisis cloud hopefully it’s the demise of any of these topics being considered acceptable dinner conversation.
But we are all still slaves to human nature. Maslow laid it out for us. Once we have enough food, shelter, safety and sex we need esteem and self-actualization. Achieving those higher needs by making other people feel inferior is just frosting on the cake. So unless our lives end up looking like something out of a Steinbeck novel rest assured that dinner conversations in the era of tight credit will need a topic that fulfills the competitive spirit of middle-class suburbanites. But bragging about your bathroom extension to someone whose house is in the process of foreclosure is trés gauche darling.
Fear not! In an environment of massive personal and government debt, a seething resentment towards anyone whose job title is an acronym starting with the letter “C”, and a sincerely held concern that Al Gore is right this time around, we will rediscover our mojo. In the new world order, austerity will become a fashion statement. Our spending habits will be realigned to show our neighbours how thrifty, magnanimous and eco-friendly we are. Conspicuous consumption will morph into conspicuous frugality.
But don’t think for a minute think that I’m talking about an outbreak of anti-capitalist, deep green sentiment. The way we’ll be separating the have nots from the haves is by buying our claim to parsimony. Credit boom cool was all about the big house, the big bonus, the big $50,000 4Wheel Drive and the long overseas holiday. But to be credit crunch cool you’ll need a small mortgage, a work-from-home deal, a $110,000 Tesla Roadster and ample volunteer work. Credit crunch cool requires just as much money, professional prestige and the ultimate luxury – time – to achieve. The art is making it look like you have none of them.
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