The terror of the American consumer

October is fast approaching and fear is in the air. But the fear I’m thinking of isn’t just a nod to the season. No, I’m talking about the fear that “things” (the world) are “different” (worse) than the way we thought they were …  like how at the end of The Sixth Sense or The Others you realize that all the beloved heroes and heroines aren’t actually humans but the mother-flipping haunts themselves. That kind of fear.

Take the battered horse that is the current state of our economy.  We like to think it’s all Wall Street’s or Washington’s fault, but who can argue that a portion of the blame shouldn’t be doled out to so many of us consumerist zombies who insisted on living beyond our means? Come on … we all bought those things we didn’t need in order to keep up with a consumer culture that can only lead to financial ruin – cars, boats, plastic surgery, or for the lower-income among us, perhaps a spoiler or a laptop or a sound system. Let’s face it: Being an American is hard. And yet so many of us genuinely had no idea what we were getting into, or the price we’d pay just to stay there.

And no one’s above it. Look at Annie Leibovitz, for example — PBS showed that documentary on her every weekend for like three months a few years ago and we all became experts: The legendary Rolling Stone photographer was the ultimate contemporary American, a symbol of art, luck, and edginess who needed nothing but a camera and a good face to live her life well. Now, on the eve of her 60^th birthday, the Art Capital Group has called in the photographer’s $24-million debt. And though that sounds terrifying, it also means Miss Leibovitz is still the ultimate contemporary American — in debt up to her skewed camera lens and forced to pay off “living-well” liabilities by liquidating long-accrued assets. Just like the rest of us.

Even I have been a willing participant in the credit craze. I used to scoff at those borrowers of sub-prime mortgages — I mean, really, didn’t they read the terms of their agreement? But then last week I smugly checked the status of my awesome credit card transfer – 2.9% fixed for the life of the balance – and saw that the minimum balance, normally $200 a month, had jumped to $675. “You gotta be kidding me!” I told the awful credit representative, “I can’t afford that!” To which he responded, “I’m sorry, ma’am. Chase decided to cancel that offer across the bored. Your new APR is now 21%. Didn’t you read the notice?”

No. I didn’t read the notice and no, I didn’t see the fine print, because all things Chase quickly go in the trash.  (Unless, of course, I’m looking for more of those transfer-balance checks. And for the past 10 years, I’d transferred every major purchase onto that card: my car, my laptop, plane tickets, even my ex-boyfriend’s debt because, at the time, I thought we’d be together forever – but that’s another story in stupidity.) How was I supposed to know about the fine print and the terror it could cause?

So here’s the point: I’m not above this financial quagmire we’re in … and neither are you. And as much as we all bitch about it, it turns out that if we don’t keep savings or have generous family members who do, Big Bankers, or your insurance company, or even your employer will soon have you facing an economic crisis so big, no Hollywood or Halloween demon could ever hope to scare you again.