The more things change, the more they stay the same

Before the days when people were worried that they were still carrying around a first generation iphone (oh the horrors) or whether or not their car had an ipod docking station or whether or not their laptop was paper thin and touch screen, people were being sucked into a consumer driven lifestyle.

Maybe the good ol' days weren't as idyllic as we've imagined.

Economist and retail analyst, Victor Lebow, wrote in 1955:

Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfactions, our ego satisfactions, in consumption.  The measure of social status, of social acceptance, of prestige, is now to be found in our consumptive patterns.  The very meaning and significance of our lives today is expressed in consumptive terms....We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever-increasing pace.  We need to have people eat, drink, dress, ride, live with ever more complicated and, therefore, constantly more expensive consumption.

That which has been is what will be,

That which is done is what will be done,

And there is nothing new under the sun. 

Ecc. 1:9