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--> --> Today's ad: Spend like there's no tomorrow By Roger Simon WASHINGTON - Having long ago learned that the commercials during football games are often more interesting than the games, I sat up and took notice on Sunday when one of those new "patriotic" commercials came on. Marketers believe Americans are suckers for anything - and we usually prove them right - and so they have been waving flags like crazy ever since Sept. 11. This ad featured the usual dramatic music, footage of George Bush giving a speech about courage and then shots of cooks, doormen, airline pilots, and hotel clerks all telling us to get out there and spend some dough. "American courage," they chant, "can overcome American challenges." The message, sponsored by the Travel Industry Association of America, was simple and direct: If you don't travel, you are a sissy. If you don't buy airline tickets and stay at hotels and go to restaurants, you are a coward. If you don't consume, you are un-American. You can decide for yourself whether that is true or not, but a lot of industries besides the travel industry are worried that Americans will do something very shocking: They are worried that Americans will actually save money. In the past, Americans have saved very little money and we have one of the lowest savings rates in the industrialized world. Not long ago, Americans actually recorded a negative savings rate, which meant that on average Americans owed more money than they had money in the bank. In other words, they were saving less than nothing. Some economists argued that this was not a bad thing: Consumer spending was making the economy surge ahead, and people didn't really have to put aside money into savings every week as long as their investments (i.e., their 401(k) plans, etc.) were increasing in value due to the rising stock market. The problem came when the stock market stopped rising and started falling - it didn't come as much of a surprise on Monday when the National Bureau of Economic Research announced we were officially in a recession - and when layoffs start happening and people got scared. When people get scared, they stop spending and start saving. They are saving because they are worried they will lose their jobs or they are saving because they think there will be more terrorist attacks and the stock market, which has been doing better these last few weeks, will plunge again. The post-Sept. 11 downturn in the travel industry is not just because people are afraid to get on a plane, in other words. It's because people are afraid of a lot of things, and saving money (if you can) is what you do when you are afraid. Which has merchants tearing out their hair. Prices drop, but people don't spend. Instead, they save their money for even gloomier days. This leads to more lay-offs, more fear, less spending, and the cycle goes on and on. Many consumer goods are actually cheaper today than they were a year ago. According to one economist, Americans had 32 percent more discretionary income - the money you have after you pay your bills - in September than they did a year ago. So that means Americans are going to go out and take that trip to the five star hotel in New York and eat at that fancy restaurant and buy new computers and iPods and all the rest, right? Well, maybe yes and maybe no. They have certainly been buying cars at zero-percent financing, but the auto industry can't afford that forever. As merchants have noted over the post-Thanksgiving shopping weekend, consumers are generally avoiding anything that isn't on sale. Americans are being careful, in other words. And some are doing what their parents always told them to do: They are putting money away for a rainy day. The Bush administration is well-aware of what is happening and knows that no matter how well the war is going, Americans will always vote their pocketbooks (the president remembers what happened to his father), and so it is arranging for billions in bailouts: $15 billion in cash for the airline industry, $20 billion to rebuild in New York and the Pentagon, and a major "stimulus" bill that may emerge from Congress at more than $100 billion. All this is designed to pump-up the economy, end the fear and get Americans to do what they have always done best: spend like there is no tomorrow. Roger Simon is a syndicated columnist for the Baltimore Sun. Email your... Technical questions & comments to: WebMaster Daily Tidings editorial comments & questions to: Editor Visit our other Oregon Newspapers... | Albany Democrat-Herald | Ashland Daily Tidings | Corvallis Gazette-Times | | Lebanon Express | Newport News-Times | Springfield News | Cottage Grove Sentinel | Ashland Daily Tidings 1661 Siskiyou Blvd. Ashland, OR 97520 Telephone 541-482-3456 © Copyright 2001 Lee Northwest Publishing