Doug Poretz

The Economy's Worst Is Still Ahead of Us

I agree with all the above, but will take it a step further. Since Post World War II, this nation has been innundated with "buy this" messages, and, as a result, adopted a materialistic culture. It was that culture that gave rise to the economic situation described in your comments. But it gave rise to other things as well: our politics, our entertainment, our life styles. The consumer, for all practical purposes, is dead for a while (OK: comatose). The traditional advertisers will seek greater effeciency for their dollars, and they will take their messages to those distribution channels that go straight to their targets. At the same time, the political change that is about to occur in the US (and the world), is going to cause the emergence of a massive amount of "support this" messages -- brought to you by the special interest groups of all ilks, sizes, persuasions and motivations that will need to defend against changes that could change the rules of their game (as well as promote some changes that can make their game better). Ultimately, there will be a cultural change. I think it is way too early to predict what that culture will look like. But I do not think it is too early to predict that some old business models are going to fail -- for example, in my business, the communications business. If interested, I write about that at my blog, which is linked above.