Seen on the web...

culture of shopping

I periodically visit Virginia Postrel's web site. Her big thing of is the economic value of asthetics. She recently wrote this item.

How much money is "okay" for us to spend on ourselves?

On one hand, it seems selfish to spend too much.

But think about this: when we spend money someone has a job. I heard Dennis Prager talking about this. We buy stuff like shoes and some poor man or woman in Southeast Asia has a job making them. What if all American's decided to become totally anti-materialistic and stopped buying things? Hmmm...

So is it better for us to buy the imported good that provides a job or to give the money to a charity that provides help overseas?

Likewise, Postrel talks about how some of the fashion magazines pushes women to buy more and more stuff and more and more fancy stuff to "keep up with the Jones." Hence, she praises magazines like Lucky that has a more realistic assessment of the discretionary spending women have -- you can be fashionable without breaking the credit card.

culture of red-state/blue-state

On a visit to Instapundit came across this item.

It is written by a Harvard Law professor who is also a Christian. He is a "red-stater" in a "blue-state" business in a "blue-state." He makes some interesting observations about where there might be common ground between the two worlds.

I work in academic research (blue-state business) in California (blue-state) and am a Christian (red-state) so I could relate to what he is saying.