(From the Duh! File) U.S. luxury spending grows, wealthy are happy.

[Freeper]

SoCalDem  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Thu Jul-22-10 09:25 AM
Original message
(From the Duh! File) U.S. luxury spending grows, wealthy are happy.
   
and aren't we all just thrilled for them? :eyes:


http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66K5M020100721



By Michelle Nichols

NEW YORK | Wed Jul 21, 2010 3:58pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Spending on luxury goods by affluent Americans is forecast to grow by $28 billion in 2010, experts said on Wednesday, and the wealthy are happy despite most believing the United States is still in recession. The "Survey of Affluence and Wealth in America" found luxury spending would rebound for the first time in three years, led by purchases of automobiles, services, travel and children's clothing. But the online poll of 1,900 households with an average annual income of more than $235,000 by American Express Publishing and Harrison Group showed 94 percent still believe the United States is in recession. The households surveyed between January and April represent 10 percent of Americans and 50 percent of all retail sales.

"Interest in luxury is trending up, but this interest is qualitatively different from the unbridled enthusiasm that characterized ... the mid-2000s," said Jim Taylor, Harrison Group's vice chairman. "People take pride in the way they have managed their finances and family through the recession." "We think it's going to be a pretty good Christmas (for retailers)," he said. And this pride had led to happiness among the rich, with 71 percent saying they are happy, up from 40 percent in 2007. "It's because they didn't know they could survive something this bad," Taylor told the Luxury Marketing Council of New York on Wednesday. "They have got competent, they have gotten close to their family, they have self-esteem from their ability to handle a crisis." "Happiness is now the abiding object of affluent American life, not success," he said. "They're really happy with their ability to operate under pressure."

snip

The survey also found the recession has resulted in more people measuring their success by their personal lives, not their careers. Only 45 percent said they were successful in 2007, while this year 76 percent consider themselves successful in their personal life and 67 percent in their career.

snip

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8793407

Of course the genius population at DU doesn't see this as potentially good news.

Lochloosa  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Thu Jul-22-10 09:31 AM
Response to Original message
1. Good. It's supposed to trickle down to us little people. Remember.
   
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liberal N proud Donating Member (1000+ posts)  Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list    Thu Jul-22-10 09:32 AM
Response to Reply #1
2. ROFLMAO
   
The only trickle we will ever see is the shit trickling out of their sewers on our heads.

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RKP5637 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list    Thu Jul-22-10 09:42 AM
Response to Reply #1
5. Yep, when we get pissed on... that's the trickle down. Reagan taught them well. n/t
   
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raccoon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list    Thu Jul-22-10 09:33 AM
Response to Original message
3. Wow, what a relief it is to hear that. I can't tell you how anxious I've been, had trouble getting
   
to sleep, no appetite, worrying about whether rich people were happy or depressed during these hard times.

Need I add:


   

What they don't realize is so far one of their own has benefited from this, the joker primitive got called back to his old job who's primary customers are the evil rich.

That's the difference between conservatives and libs. Conservatives see rich people and think of ways to provide them products and or services so they can make money off them. The libs want Obama to go into their bank accounts and hand out cash to the downtrodden.

[thundley4]

The rich spending on luxury items would have more of a trickle down effect, if unions had not chased all those manufacturing jobs overseas.

[Ralph Wiggum]

Hmmm, contrasting news elsewhere:

The economic recovery has been helped in large part by the spending of the most affluent. Now, even the rich appear to be tightening their belts.

Late last year, the highest-income households started spending more confidently, while other consumers held back. But their confidence has since ebbed, according to retail sales reports and some economic analysis.

“One of the reasons that the recovery has lost momentum is that high-end consumers have become more jittery and more cautious,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics. ... Linda Dresner, the owner of a clothing boutique for women that carries designers like Dries van Noten and John Galliano in the upscale suburb of Birmingham, Mich., has reduced her inventory and says customers often say their husbands have asked them to rein in spending.

“They are wealthy people who live well,” Ms. Dresner said. “But their businesses have suffered some, and they are pulling back.”

Policy makers are divided on what may be needed to spur economic growth, with a current debate raging over whether to extend unemployment benefits, payments that are usually spent immediately. .

Sam Pizzigati, associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, a left-leaning research center, cautions against simply boosting the spending power of the rich through tax cuts or other measures. “Otherwise, we find ourselves in an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ world,” he said, “and the solution to the hard times that the economy is going through is to help the people that are not going through hard times.”

For now, some affluent spenders are getting thrifty. Linda Stasiak, who sells high-end skin care products to retailers like Whole Foods, said that her biggest sales increase had been for a $15.95 tube wringer, made to get every last drop out of a bottle of lotion.

“During peak time, I don’t even really remember selling them,” Ms. Stasiak said.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Wealthy-Reduce-Buying-in-a-nytimes-3611525031.html?x=0&.v=1

H/T to Bijou

[jukin]

I've been reading that actual luxury companies are reporting lower sales.  Me thinks the Arpachetks are stirring the pot of class war.

[Karin]

Conservatives see rich people and think of ways to provide them products and or services so they can make money off them.

  Of course.  My first husband made 6 figures selling Audis in Connecticut.  Then he bought a lot of toys, cash.  You better believe it trickles down. 

[DumbAss Tanker]

Not just fools, but embittered fools.  But then, we all knew that already.