The Paradox of Choice

When I was a kid, my “uniform” was blue jeans and a white t-shirt. The cuffs were folded up about six inches… they quickly filled with dirt and other debris which I would need to dump out before I came in the house. They rarely fit me and were ALWAYS too long. They took forever to break in and it felt like I was wearing a canvas tent on my ass – made that horrible shwoop shwoop as I walked.

But back then, that’s what they had; they were Blue Jeans. The all t-shirts were white; no one had figured out yet that you could print crap on them. Walk into a clothing store now, hell, any place that sells jeans and you are overwhelmed by the options; straight leg, skinny, boot cut or slim boot cut, rigid, destructed, faded, stone-washed or grey, pre-shrunk – how about original. There are too many choices.

It’s that way with everything now – I was trying to find tooth paste; did I want tartar control, whitener, how about sensitive teeth, fresh clean mint or zesty mint, vanilla? Do I buy it in a tube or a pump? Milk is simple, right? Do I get 1% or 2%, acidophilus or regular, paper carton or plastic jug? When I make it to the check out counter I am even asked: “paper or plastic”?

I saw a YouTube video of Barry Schwartz, author of “The Paradox of Choice - Why More Is Less” give a presentation at a TED conference last year and I HAD to buy his book. The gist of the topic is that we consumers are overwhelmed by the choices in our lives to a point where having so many choices actually causes stress in our lives. The constant assault on our senses by advertising targeted (quite literally) at us from every direction takes an unconscious toll on our psyche.

My Daughter One is a prime example. She has such difficulty making choices. According to Schwartz, she is a “Maximizer” – she is singularly focused on making the RIGHT choice. So she agonizes over every decision and spends inordinate amounts of time researching, comparing and categorizing. Then, after she has made her purchase, she worries that she has made an incorrect choice; that there was a better option that she has now missed.

My Daughter Two is a “Satisficer”; they select the option that is “good enough”. It fits the bill. I watched the two daughters deciding on which font to print on the napkins for Daughter Two’s wedding. Daughter One explained how one font was more elegant but this other font stands out more. After the discussion went on too long for Daughter Two, she plucked one of the fonts randomly, holding it up saying “this one”! When Daughter One questioned the decision, Daughter Two simply said: “It’s just a cocktail napkin, who cares?!”

But thinking about weddings for a moment… I’ve noticed that our kid’s generation seems to be putting off things like marriage and career decision much later in life than we did. The Book talks about that as well. Sure you are dating a cool guy right now, but who knows… maybe there is someone out there I haven’t met yet who is Better!

My wife notes that I am less than a Satisficer… I put almost no thought into my purchase choices. Instead, I am a Commando Shopper – My objective is to get in, obtain the needed item, then get out of the store in the shortest amount of time. As a result I often come home with underwear that is too large and socks that are too small.

Jeans? I buy Levi’s 501 34 x 29. Blue. Never anything else.

Myth of the Market - Pt 3

I have two LG cell phones and a washing machine. When my GE microwave burned up after only one year, I replaced it with an LG. Zenith was a great American innovator of consumer electronics – they invented the TV remote and HDTV. Zenith sent its American workers home and went bankrupt in 1999. Zenith now belongs to LG.

Since the 1970’s, the income (adjusted for inflation) of the American middle class has not kept pace with the cost of living. Living wage manufacturing jobs have steadily declined, and in some sectors of the economy, they are gone for good. We have turned from a county that used to “make” things, to one that mostly “buys” things. Stuff that we INVENTED, like almost the entire electronic industry (TV, audio, cameras), are no longer made here. Zenith, Marantz, RCA, and dozens of household names are now gone from the domestic employment landscape. Most all of our clothing is imported, as is much of our food. Even American flags are made in China. Steel manufacturing in the US is gone – our largest export is now scrap metal.

For years CNN news anchor and author, Lou Dobbs, has been warning that corporate America has been laying-off their own customers. Dobbs even has a new book out about it. When you think about it, the corporate mindset in this country is pretty schizophrenic – My Company reduces overhead and increases profit by laying people off. But My Company wants the Other Guy’s Company employees to spend their wages buying My Company’s products. Of course, Other Guy’s Company wants the same thing. They both (all) suffer the same cognitive disconnect.

Therein lies what American corporations don’t understand: “Employees” and “Consumers” are the SAME PEOPLE. This simple, elegant and apparently, unknown fact has me screaming at the TV news every night. Laying people off makes the economy WORSE! If your boat is sinking, you don’t drill more holes in the hull to let the water out!

To their credit, a (significantly) scant few companies have figured this out. For example: locally in Corvallis, HP (Hewlett Packard) instead decided to reduce the salaries of their employees rather than lay people off entirely. Laid off people don’t keep spending – but employed people do. Spending makes the economy work. People spending money creates jobs (tax cuts do not).

Don’t believe it? Look at China. Asia has replaced our manufacturing base; Japan, then Korea, Taiwan then China all raised the living standard of their middle class by MAKING stuff for American consumers and benefiting themselves by creating a new class of Asian consumers. But then our financial crisis, and the subsequent laying off of millions of workers/consumers, has reduced our ability to buy stuff made in Asia, causing their economy to go south.

The parable of the Goose that Lays the Golden Egg is most apt when describing the corporate mindset – the story goes that the golden eggs are not being laid fast enough to satisfy the greed of the goose’s owners, so they cut it open to get at all the golden eggs -- They kill their only source of income. Laying off their employees may satisfy a company's short-term needs, but that only causes a snowballing-effect throughout the entire economy, causing others to need to do the same. Being unable or unwilling to see the bigger picture does not reflect well on the reputation of “American Innovation” that we as a nation like to pride ourselves on.