Sidewalk Life

How Monopoly Explains US

James Poniewozik wrote an interesting piece in Time magazine about the board game Monopoly.  He suggests that Americans learn a warped sense of capitalism as children from playing the game.  Some of the things he says:

"a game whose object is to corner a market and beggar our neighbors."

"On the one hand it portrays business as Darwinian, random and vaguely criminal.  (You do occasional, unexplained stints in jail and can get out by paying somebody off.)  On the other hand, it makes real estate moguldom seem homey and attainable."

Sounds reasonably close to what you learn at business school.

I'm a Non-Conflicted Consumer

I don't really know what it means to be a non-conflicted consumer, but according to this survey on how people spend money, I'm not the tightwad I consider myself. 

Looking through the demographics, the study seems skewed to well-educated, highly employed and highly paid Caucasians, so it's not really a reflection of all Americans. Nevertheless, there were some  interesting findings.

People seem to have some guilt about spending too much on beverages.

They think they give too much to waiters and not enough to charity.

They seem to accept the high cost of cable television

They think they don't spend enough on cell phone features...

...or investments...

...or on pampering themselves.

And oddly enough, one out of three of them don't like sushi.

I've attached a  pdf of the survey results so far. 

Download tightwad_results2.pdf

We Are What We Buy

At least that's the implication form this Time Magazine chart from the America at 300 million issue.  It appears Pepsi and Bud Light are keeping America hydrated. 

I'm not sure why it took me so long to post this.  Nevertheless, it's a good issue with useful data.