Buy! Buy! Buy!

1. Buy! Buy! Buy! …For an affordable price “If it really was a no-brainer to make it on your own in business there’d be millions of no-brained, harebrained, and otherwise dubiously brained individuals quitting their day jobs and hanging out their own shingles. Nobody would be left to round out the workforce and execute the business plan.” – Bill Rancic

2. Pre- Standard Living • Progressive Era • Labor Unions created because of poor living conditions due to poor pay at jobs. • Unrest, Uncivilized, ill-prepared. ( healthy food, suitable clothes, lack of convenience) “I want to put a ding in the universe.” Steve Jobs

3. “Transition Age” • Things made more available, accessible and affordable. • Transition into the age consumerism. “Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.” Ambrose Bierce

4. What is Consumerism? Consumerism: Birth of Convenience. Refrigerators ( kept food fresh), Ready-made clothes, vacuum cleaners, electric irons, and washing machines, lessened house work and made things more convenient. • Promotion of consumers’ interests. “A budget tells us what we can't afford, but it doesn't keep us from buying it”.William Feather

5. “The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax.” Albert Einstein Assembly line. • Idea created by Adam Smith. • Similar to interchangeable parts but on a bigger scale. • Adopted by Ford Motors , and produced on larger scale ( mass production).

6. How did the assembly line contribute to consumerism? • Once something goes big, everybody wants it. Ex. iPhone • Everyone wanted a car. Why? • Mobility • Convenience • It was the “ must have” of the early 1900’s • Ford adopted the assembly to mass produce cars. How? • Simply adding pieces to car one at a time. • Helped create 1000’s of cars a week. “There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” Sam Walton

7. The man who built who built for the common man. Ford. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymEa24r0xXk “Business is never so healthy as when, like a chicken, it must do a certain amount of scratching around for what it gets.” Henry Ford

8. An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today.” Birth of Credit • Credit Cards • What was Credit in the 1900’s • Almost like down payments in today’s terms. • Example: $45 phonograph? Nahhh $5 a month till I pay it off. • How did this change buying habits? • Convenient • Didn’t discourage those who didn’t have the money right away. • Made the prices seem “ lower” • Caused debt.

9. Birth of Chain Stores “Almost all quality improvement comes via simplification of design, manufacturing... layout, processes, and procedures.” Tom Peters • Grocery Stores • Department Stores • Piggly Wiggly • J.C. Penney • Stores like Piggly Wiggly started local and spread which gave people more access to necessities like food. • Department stores like J.C. Penny that were chains created a more convenient way to get clothes, it also gave a much bigger variety of clothes

10. Advertising to the masses and the Plain Folk. “As a small businessperson, you have no greater leverage than the truth”. John Greenleaf Whittier • What’s the point of advertising? • Appeal to consumer demand. • Draws people to a product before they even see it.

11. Appealing to Mass Media • Companies used different modes of communication to reach the masses. • Ex: Newspapers, Radio stations, Billboards, and Magazines. • Modern day: T.V. Commercials “An economist's guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's.” Will Rogers

12. Impact of Buying Styles “An advertising agency is 85 percent confusion and 15 percent commission.” Fred Allen Things became more convenient. Wider varietyto choose from More effort was put into appeal. Created gateway for everyone to buy anything.

13. “Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work.” Robert Orben Benefits of Buying and Selling Buying and selling in America was all economical , political ,moral , and social centered. Economically, it boosted profits, which in turn made the economy stronger. Politically because it regulated the country much more efficiently, which gave the incumbent less to worry about, and focus on foreign trade and other miscellaneous decisions. Moral because there was less stress on the price range and availability. And socially because now, all social classes could afford the necessities. “Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive pronouncement. Economic wounds must be healed by the action of the cells of the economic body - the producers and consumers themselves.” Herbert Hoover

14. Easterlin, Richard A. “Regional Income Trends, 1840-1950.” In The Reinterpretation of American Economic History, edited byRobert William Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman. New York: Harper and Row, 1971. Engerman, Stanley L. “The Standard of Living Debate in International Perspective: Measures and Indicators.” In Health and Welfare during Industrialization, edited by Richard H. Steckel and Roderick Floud. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Floud, Roderick, Kenneth W. Wachter and Annabel S. Gregory. Height, Health, and History: Nutritional Status in the United Kingdom, 1750-1980. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Haines, Michael. “Vital Statistics.” In Historical Statistics of the United States: Millennial Edition, edited by Susan Carter, Scott Gartner, Michael Haines, Alan Olmstead, Richard Sutch, and Gavin Wright. New York: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming, 2002. Komlos, John. “Shrinking in a Growing Economy? The Mystery of Physical Stature during the Industrial Revolution.” Journal of Economic History 58, no. 3 (1998): 779-802. Maddison, Angus. The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective. Paris: OECD, 2001. Meeker, Edward. “Medicine and Public Health.” In Encyclopedia of American Economic History, edited by Glenn Porter. New York: Scribner, 1980. Pope, Clayne L. “Adult Mortality in America before 1900: A View from Family Histories.” In Strategic Factors in Nineteenth-Century American Economic History: A Volume to Honor Robert W. Fogel, edited by Claudia Goldin and Hugh Rockoff. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Porter, Roy, editor. The Cambridge Illustrated History of Medicine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Steckel, Richard H. “Health, Nutrition and Physical Well-Being.” In Historical Statistics of the United States: Millennial Edition, edited by Susan Carter, Scott Gartner, Michael Haines, Alan Olmstead, Richard Sutch, and Gavin Wright. New York: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming, 2002. Steckel, Richard H. “Industrialization and Health in Historical Perspective.” In Poverty, Inequality and Health, edited by David Leon and Gill Walt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Steckel, Richard H. “Strategic Ideas in the Rise of the New Anthropometric History and Their Implications for Interdisciplinary Research.” Journal of Economic History 58, no. 3 (1998): 803-21. Steckel, Richard H. “Stature and the Standard of Living.” Journal of Economic Literature 33, no. 4 (1995): 1903-1940. Steckel, Richard H. “A Peculiar Population: The Nutrition, Health, and Mortality of American Slaves from Childhood to Maturity.” Journal of Economic History 46, no. 3 (1986): 721-41. Steckel, Richard H. and Roderick Floud, editors. Health and Welfare during Industrialization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Citation: Steckel, Richard. "A History of the Standard of Living in the United States". EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. July 21, 2002. URL http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/steckel.standard.living.us Encyclopedia: Encyclopedia “Out there in some garage is an entrepreneur who’s forging a bullet with yourcompany’s name on it.”Gary Hamel, Business Writer