What our government told Americans about consumerism ... in 1944

[Newsjock]

From the Sept. 4, 1944 issue of Life:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Vk8EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA89&as_pt=MAGAZINES&pg=PA105#v=onepage&q=&f=false

How to prevent inflation in one easy lesson

Put that money back in your pocket!

When a lot of people want the same thing, its price goes up. Americans have more money today -- much more -- than there are things to buy with it. So every big or little thing you buy -- that you can possibly do without -- cuts supplies and bids prices up on what is left. Rising prices spell inflation. And every inflation has been followed by a cruel and bitter depression ... men out of work, homes lost, families suffering.

We don't want inflation; we don't want another depression.

4 THINGS TO DO to keep prices down and help avoid another depression
1. Don't buy a thing you can do without.
2. Never pay more than the ceiling price. Always give stamps for rationed goods.
3. Don't take advantage of war conditions to fight for more money for yourself or goods you sell.
4. Save. Buy and hold all the War Bonds you can afford -- to help pay for the war and insure your future. Keep up your insurance.
HELP US KEEP PRICES DOWN

A United States War message prepared by the War Advertising Council; approved by the Office of War Information; and contributed by this magazine in cooperation with the Magazine Publishers of America.

[NYC_SKP]

1. Bookmarked. This is the way we should live. It's also a way to fight corporatism. nt

[Newsjock]

3. Indeed!

And I'd say that the Previous Occupants did quite a job of disregarding Point #3.

[rockymountaindem]

2. Could you imagine what would happen today if the gov't told us not to buy things they don't need?

The faux outrage would drown us all like a deluge.

[mix]

4. This was a wartime economy.

More money in the banks meant the government had access to capital and production was not geared toward consumer goods anyways...yet the post-WWII economic boom would be due in large part to an extreme consumerism.

[JackRiddler]

5. Ahem, every day we're told that "we are at war."

[mix]

7. The perpetual war did begin then, in a different mode, with intermittent hot wars.

The war economy of WWII however had specific demands and challenges.

[thunder rising]

8. Yes, followed with "Go Shopping"

[JackRiddler]

9. Buy War Bonds, Keep Shopping!

[JDPriestly]

6. Wonderful! Good advice.

[dipsydoodle]

10. ditto

rec'd

[Double T]

11. 'The United States of Stuff (USS)' would never allow such advice today.

USS believes and does the exact opposite. Depression is our only outcome and in many ways we have ourselves to blame. Only when we take back our country from criminal wall street, corrupt corporations and our totally inept government, will things start to get better for 'We the People'.

[On the Road]

12. Well, If That Advice Had Been Followed *After* the War

the worst fears of half the country would have been realized when the US sank right back into a depression.