Income vs. consumerism

I would have to agree that income statistics don't tell the whole story of American living standards. Take Joe Blow college student for example. Here he or she is in school maybe working, maybe not, but more than likely working for a low income wage. But all the while, somehow, living a pretty darn decent life with having the means to pay for rent, food, tuition, books, cell phones, clothing, ipods, bicycles, booze and entertainment. There are also the students who even have expensive car payments along with gas, insurance, maintenance, and stiff parking fees.

So where does a full time student spending $15,000 to $20,000 a year or more acquire that kind of money to spend? Though some very dedicated students work both at school and job, most are finding ways to live for now and pay back later or have some other situation worked out with their parents or extended family. So with the help of credit cards, student loans, trust funds, financial aid, grants, under the table work, part time, and full time work, and maybe the occasional bet or hustle of this or that..we end up spending more annually than it shows we make. So, sorority sister Sally who drives a brand new Audi A7, with a $500 hand bag complete with matching heels and a recent trip to the beauty salon for all those can't go without essentials, comes up on the national income census as living in poverty.This is clearly not poverty. And we all know this doesn't stop with Sally.

Why not look to people’s consumption rates for a means of determining more accurate American living standards? Cox and Alm were right, if you look at peoples income you see a much larger gap between the top fifth and the lower fifth, when you look at consumption rates, that gap shortens substantially. Americans are living better on less than they ever have as a result of international trade, and I agree that we should be looking at consumption rates instead of income rates. Also, with using consumption rates, we have the opportunity to look into many more areas of American life than with income rates.

comments on week 4 readings

Undergraduate geography students Barrett Young (left) and Kevin Weddle (right) are spending their summer doing research to catalogue the health of the Truckee River using GIS technology and repeat photography methods. (Photo by: University Communications)

Of all this weeks readings, the Presidential address by Peirce Lewis stands out the most in my mind. Not only did I enjoy his thoughts and ideas on geography, but I really agreed with his style of writing as well. I enjoyed his way of bringing you, the reader, into the realm of geography by using his own experiences as examples; he kind of just brought you along with him and his day.

He obviously has a very keen understanding of many different topics within geography and as a result can very clearly and affectively explain what it is he knows and understands. It is interesting the ways which he chooses to convey a certain thought or idea for the purpose of getting you to look inwards at your own geographic soul.

It was great to here his comments on how the average person reacts to the news that you are a geographer or studying to be one. He was dead on. With a perplexed look, and a scratch of the forehead, you know their drawing a blank. I've probably experienced it myself now at least 100 times and lately I've even been able to call it before its even said. Usually in my cases, the standard comment is "Oh.....Geography.........um............now what do you plan to do with that"?

My comment has been "Geography is everywhere. It's in most everything we do in one way or the other, i plan to do a lot with it."

So reading this has got me thinking.....what do I want to do with my Geography education. I've gone round and round about this but have never come up with one solid "know for sure" idea. Lewis brought up some interesting ideas on childhood education concerning geography. I must say it would be pretty rewarding to build a very solid, thought provoking geography program for middle school students. I think it is very likely that a substantial percentage of middle school students here in the United States hears the word geography and instantly feel like they know very little about it, when in fact they might; but on the flip side, I bet if they had the option of taking a geography class or if geography was miraculously to become core curriculum again, that they would find they know a lot more about geography than previously thought.