Keep this in mind. Gary Lamphier writes for the Edmonton Journal business section. It is from his column in the November 29, 2008 Edmonton Journal:
When people in future ponder what led up to the great U.S. economic collapse of 2008, I suspect most of the murky financial details will be long forgotten. But two small human tales may well endure in the realm of popular mythology.
Both neatly encapsulate the crazy excesses of U.S. consumer culture.
One stems from the tragic death Friday of a Wal-Mart worker at a store in Long Island, N.Y., who was stampeded by a throng of shoppers after they broke down the front doors, Bloomberg reports.
At least four shoppers were hurt in the mayhem, including a pregnant woman. The dead man was a 34-year-old temp. As he expired on the floor, shoppers continued to stream in, drawn by deals on DVD players and digital cameras.
A few months ago, in suburban Atlanta, a tragedy of a different sort briefly made headlines. A splashy new $450,000 home featured on the ABC TV show Extreme Makeover had to be auctioned off.
Seems its free-spending new owners, who were given the house on the show three years earlier after it was built by an army of volunteers, had used the home as collateral for a loan to start a new business.
When the business went bust, the family had to turn over the keys. They had also received $250,000 in cash, but they managed to blow that, too, on such indulgences as a six-day family trip to Disneyland.
As Forrest Gump would say: “Stupid is as stupid does.”
