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The correction behind the correction By MARY JANE HOLT It's time again to revisit the term "stock market correction." I am finally hearing more and more references to a reduction of consumer spending being the cause. The powers that be are finally talking about you and me. Not the CE-whatevers or the board members, but you and me. Seems like we are now getting the blame or the credit, depending on how you look at it, for the decline of stock market activity. And rightly so. We know it's not war or fear of terrorism that has caused Americans to stop spending so much. We peons have discovered, in recent years, that the guy next door never had a thing on us. Consequently, enough Americans have stopped keeping up with Joneses to the point that we are actually making a difference in stock market activity. Not only have we begun to realize it is not possessions that bring peace and happiness, we also are fed up with having to buy more and more and better and better because what we have been sold will not last. We are fed up with things are not made to endure, so some of us have begun to make do. And it feels good! We figure sooner or later, manufacturers will get the message. For instance, I am extraordinarily irritated with the clothing industry and Hollywood. Nobody on the California coast or in New York City is going to dictate to me, either directly or indirectly, what to wear or how to fix my hair or face. If you buy your size today, your real true size, many of the designs hug you quite uncomfortably. I don't like naked and I don't like skin tight. Never have. Never will. And you know what, I don't know any men or women or boys and girls for that matter who don't appreciate a little mystery. I like clothes that hang comfortably, flow a little, and compliment what I have and don't have. Is that too much to ask? Also, I want a variety of colors every year. Just in case I decide one year not one month, or one week, but one year to go out and refresh my wardrobe I want to see a variety of colors, not just "the one" that's in that year. Now you know why my wardrobe consists primarily of black, white and red. If it's not classic and if I don't know that I can wear it ten years from now, I don't buy. That is what I expect at a minimum. I'm still wearing casual and dress clothes that I bought more than a decade ago. If I wear something out or outgrow it (yeah, that still happens occasionally) then I may throw it out or pass it on. My car is a 1993. The truck my husband sold when he bought his "new" truck was ten years old. That's how it ought to be. We should be able to expect that products we buy will last and not have to be updated every year or two. I'm not even going to delve deeply into the computer industry. It's Monday morning and to do so would ruin my week. Suffice it to say, that's one industry that better get the message quick or we Americans will continue to simplify our lives even more. You see, that's what's happened. It hasn't even been a subtle happening. We want simplicity. We want it yesterday. We want to have time to know ourselves, our family, our friends, our next door neighbor again. It still blows me away that nobody can figure out what has happened with the stock market. We are fed up with being sold goods that don't last and we are realizing once more that more is not necessarily better. We also may have become fed up with the countless options. Those options are too confusing. Considering just some of them is very time-consuming. So we have worked at two and three jobs in order to have the money to make the choices that are ours because of all the options American industry/technology affords us. We have said "Enough!" Reckon Wall Street will ever get the real message(s)? As I said a year or two ago, we are covered up with things, but families are falling by the way. A correction has been very much in order. I often recall the lack of things that I perceived to be poverty as a child. How wrong I was. Clearly, it is all that we do to add so many things that brings poverty to far too many lives. Indeed, this continuing stock market correction is a good thing. May the correction behind the correction make its way into the hearts and homes of every American.
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