Friday, June 19, 2009

From quirky economic indicators to keeping up your lifestyle

Welcome to another edition of "Signs That The Economy is Bad" here at The Itinerant Librarian. I have an item or two, but before we get to those, I want to point out this article from Kiplinger (via Yahoo! Finance) which presents "10 quirky economic indicators." I could agree with most of the stuff, except the movie theater thing.

I don't disagree with the numbers. Just the idea. Have these people not discovered Netflix or their local video shop, where you can likely rent a few movies for the price of the movie theater outing? Because one has to note that, though the "average" ticket price according to the article is $7.18, you still have to pay for the popcorn and the sodas, and all that does add up. In terms of cost, the rental and your own food is likely cheaper. So, I am guessing, it must be the need to get out of the house that drives this. That, and maybe a few people had their big fancy flat screens repossessed during the recession. And no, I am not being snarky; a lot of people overextended themselves on expenses and credit. That is why TV reality shows like this train wreck seem to do well. Anyhow, it was something I wondered about.

So, going back to other signs that the economy is bad:

But the items above are nothing compared to this next item. Very often, on tv, you may see ads for car dealers that offer to get you in a car without regard to your credit. No credit check seems to be a popular thing for some people. Ok, I get it. Now, check this out. I think it speaks for itself as another sign that the economy is bad.







After all, you have to keep the lifestyle. Word.

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