| The Ottawa Citizen
Wednesday, March 18 2009, By Dan Gardner. ©The Ottawa Citizen. |
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Brother, can you spare a Lego Death Star replica? Clicking around eBay the other day, I came across a box of Star Wars trading cards. But these were not just any Star Wars trading cards. These were "Topps Star Wars FIRST SERIES -- 36 UNOPENED packages of movie photo cards!!!" Sticks of what one assumes is very stale chewing gum were still inside each enticingly unopened package. With three days to go in the auction, 19 bids had been made. The top offer was $355 (U.S.). These are tough times, we are told. Some have taken to calling it "the Great Recession." Stocks have plummeted. Real estate has slumped. Economies are wilting. Unemployment is rising fast. It is now 7.7 per cent, the highest it has been since the dark and distant days of 1998. But then there is the $60 (U.S.) someone bid for a Cabbage Patch doll on eBay. The $2,500 someone else wants for "an authentic prop reproduction" of Dorothy's ruby slippers. The $860 offer for a collection of Star Wars action figures that are even more useless than the Star Wars trading cards. So let us juxtapose two statements: One, we are in the midst of an economic recession so awful it is worthy of the adjective "great"; two, substantial numbers of people in the countries experiencing this catastrophe eagerly spend the equivalent of a month's rent on collectible toys. Those two statements do not sit comfortably in the same brain. And this is only eBay, the Wal-Mart of auction houses. Go a little more upscale and the cognitive dissonance turns into an ice-cream headache. Late in October 2008 -- shortly after Wall Street melted down and the stock market crashed -- someone paid a little over $1 million (U.S.) for a postage stamp issued in 1868. The last time the stamp had come to auction was 1993. It was bought for $85,000 (U.S.). In February, a 90-year-old chair designed by Eileen Gray sold for £19.3 million. That's $34.5 million. For a chair.
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Now, it's true that markets in "collectibles" are hurting. Prices are down. A February report in the Globe and Mail, citing CNW Research, found that prices for collectible cars "had fallen noticeably since 2006. A 1955 Mercedes-Benz Gull Wing was down about two per cent; a 1960 Ferrari 250 GT California Spider down one per cent; a 1965 Plymouth Hemi Coupe down 23 per cent; and a 1957 Ford Thunderbird down 15 per cent." If you own a 1955 Mercedes-Benz Gull Wing, this is a bummer. But it's not a disaster. And that fact says a great deal about the current economic reality. Remember, we are talking about commodities which economic theorists call "useless crap." Yes, it is true that a 1955 Mercedes-Benz Gull Wing can be used for grocery shopping, just as that Eileen Gray chair can be used to hold up its owner's buttocks, and a Han Solo action figure can be used to wedge open a door. But their price does not reflect any practical function. It is the result of many people with money wanting the item in question for decidedly non-utilitarian reasons. In truly tough times, the price of Stars Wars action figures shouldn't dip. It should vanish. People standing in line at the soup kitchen don't pay cash for Wookies. Of course, not even the worst alarmist claims everyone is boiling shoe leather over campfires in the local Hooverville. Some people still have money, they acknowledge. They just won't spend it. "Frugality has been spreading like a social virus," claims Margaret Wente in the Globe and Mail. "People aren't just cutting back because of the uncertain times. They're cutting back because frugality seems virtuous again, and extravagance seems wicked." That virus clearly hasn't infected whoever bid $232 (U.S.) for a Lego Death Star replica. Or perhaps it's just that frugality is relative. Maybe the guy who bought the Lego Death Star thinks it's a steal at $232 and he's congratulating himself on the money he saved. Or maybe he really wanted to buy the replica Boba Fett costume but he thought that spending $1,349 (U.S.) -- not including helmet, boots and blaster -- was a bit extravagant in these tough times.
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Why, looked at that way, his purchase of the Lego Death Star was very close to an act of Depression-era thrift. I don't want to be too facetious about this. Since the start of the recession, American savings rates have edged up from less than zero to five per cent. That's far lower than the post-war average but it certainly qualifies as frugality relative to the borrow-and-spend Bush years. But comparing 2009 to 2006 really doesn't provide much perspective. No, for that, we need to step back and look at the big picture. The really big picture. Throughout all of human history, people have used the phrase "tough times" or some functional equivalent. In almost every society, in almost every time, the minimum requirement for times to qualify as "tough" was approximately the same: It meant the clothes on your back frayed, the ribs in your chest protruded, and your children grew glassy-eyed and lethargic as hunger slowly consumed their bodies. Only in the developed world, and only over the last several decades, has "tough times" meant something much less awful. Over the years, I've been criticized for chiding pessimists and doom-mongers. I've been called an optimist and a Pollyanna. I've even been called "Pangloss" by some of my more literate critics. But they misunderstand my point. I think we should be profoundly grateful for our good fortune not because I think things are so delightful, here and now. I think we should be grateful because I know how miserable things were, there and then. Look, the fear people are experiencing is real. The stock losses are real. So are the job losses. (I work for a newspaper, please remember. I know something about job insecurity.) But we live in societies so wealthy that, even in what we consider to be tough times, people spend hundreds of dollars on trading cards and chewing gum. Until that stops, and my ribs protrude a bit, I'll continue to think we are some of the luckiest people who ever lived. You can contact Dan Gardner at the Ottawa Citizen. |
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Copyright © 2005 Dan Gardner |