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It's Your Choice: Freedom Or Stuff

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 17, 2008

Last weekend I spent several hours at the Westfield Brandon mall, one of the area's largest.

Ostensibly, I was there to sign copies of my Christmas book. But I had a lot of time on my hands because of widespread lack of interest by pretty much the entire Brandon population, so I enjoyed the opportunity to sit at my little book table and watch the world go by.

I had to park beyond the perimeter, out on the grass, so I wasn't surprised at how many people were crowded into the mall. What did take me aback was the absence of merchandise in so many hands. There were people, all right, but they didn't appear to be shopping all that much.

According to The Associated Press, Chicago-based research firm ShopperTrak RCT Corp. documented increased sales nationwide the day after Thanksgiving.

But the boost was short-lived. Reuters reported Dec. 9, quoting the International Council of Shopping Centers, that sales at chain stores slipped the first week of December.
National trends aside, things appear fairly slow here in Brandon. The shoppers I talked with - the ones who weren't buying my book - told me they really weren't buying much of anything at all.

"So why are you here?" I asked, to which they mostly replied, "We enjoy the festive atmosphere, we're having fun walking around and looking."

You really can't argue with people who are wising up to the fact that it's about time we stopped spending money we never really had. The sad thing is that people lose jobs when we stop buying stuff from their stores.

I can't help but wonder whether our so-called bailout money might not be better spent putting people to work in ways that didn't simply fuel increased borrowing and keep the same wheels turning - like Sisyphus rolling his stone up the hill for eternity.

Surely we're not going to recover economically by making it easier for people to get more deeply in debt?

We seem to be locked into this mindset that equates "The American Way" with consumerism run amok.

But my definition of America is more aligned with liberty, and the freedom to make our own choices. Fact is, we're giving our freedom away, a dollar at a time, to the extent that we're in debt.

The people who first imagined America would have a hard time understanding the appeal of that.

Derek Maul can be reached at derekmaul@gmail.com.

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