Times really have changed. Recently the NY Times published an article on "Cabbage - An Inexpensive Nutritional Powerhouse." I'm getting the strange feeling that I'm coming back in style. The recipe looks good, but they left out the keilbasa. (More on my childhood in Youngstown, Ohio some other time.)

The new normal

The picture: Jizo in the Zen garden, unconcerned about the change of seasons.
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"You know, poverty isn't so bad." I can imagine a character in an off-Broadway production saying it to a friend, with a lilt of surprise in her voice. The play wouldn't be about real poverty, of course, the grind of hunger and bad sanitation, unsafe neighborhoods, no medical care, no hope. It would be about the new poverty many middle-class Americans are facing. You could call it the same old simplicity. We are getting down to basics.

Sales of paper towels have fallen off, I see, 11%, not as much as sales of women's fragrances (47%). It is fairly obvious that perfume is a luxury, maybe not so obvious that paper towels are not one of life's necessities. In fact - here comes some reminiscence - I believe they didn't even exist when I was born, though I don't feel inclined to research the history of the paper towel on this lovely, slow rainy day.

How did you wipe up spills? With a dishrag. With rags, which were torn out of old, old unmendable white sheets, sheets from the day before sheets had pattern and color and lace, yet were functional, and felt wonderful when they were freshly washed and had hung in the sun to dry.

You wiped up spills with dishtowels. I recall my shock the day I noticed in my aged parents' garage a neat package of store-bought rags. My parents were born poor in 1920, and they were thrifty. I'd never thought I'd see the day when they would waste money like that, but I guess neatness at last trumped thrift.

Many thoughtful people have always lived on the sceptical edge of the consumer society, being careful about consuming trees, for instance, using cloth napkins and discussing whether that is really a savings. It might depend on how often you wash them. I recall reading somewhere once that the Duke of Windsor was quite surprised when someone explained to him that napkin rings were used to keep the person's napkin in place from one meal to the next. "You mean they don't get a fresh napkin with every meal?" He really couldn't imagine.

So much of what we are now giving up was unsatisfying, and often experienced as stress. I think of family dinners at cheap sit-down restaurants, because Mom's too tired to cook; hectic travel; all that Christmas. Keeping up that big house, and the cottage on the lake, and the boat, and the cars.

When Tom went into pulmonary rehab several years ago, his class was taught to learn "your new normal." It's hard to adjust to being dis-abled. We had once been able, able to do what we felt like doing, and we resented the loss. There is truth to the grief, fear, frustration we feel in any loss, and we need to acknowledge it. It will pop up its ugly little troll-like head now and again.

It's also true that for many of us the present moment is pretty much alright, warm and dry, the larder stocked. Oatmeal is delicious in this weather. The library has some excellent DVDs, and if you don't buy books you don't need to dust them. The grandson has always preferred macaroni and cheese to just about anything else, and enjoyed learning to play Parcheesi, a viable alternative to his Gameboy. It's amazing how well he remembers the rules, and the outcome of every game.

Introducing Grandma-nomics

Actually, Grandma-nomics (tm) is, like Grandma, not as simple as you think. Not all about simple ideas like thrift and saving, though I do think that it is appropriate right now for the piggybank to be blue. Blue for, well, blue. Aren't we all? Those of us who saved our money somewhere other than the mattress have watched its wild decline and wished we had bought a Rhoomba while we had all that imaginary wealth. Those who didn't save money but lived on credit are finding that at the end of that rainbow there is not a pot of gold but a credit limit and a sheriff changing the locks on the doors, or however they foreclose in your neighborhood.

But enough about them. Let's go more abstract, into one of the assumptions that have crumpled like stilts in a tsunami and let this economy collapse. Notice, I didn't say "the market," but "this economy"---our collective customary ways of buying and selling, and the thoughts that underlay those habits.

It was called "the consumer economy." That meant most profit was made when individuals (consumers) bought things (either real things or services like facelifts and massage). This fundamental point is interesting to think about. Let's start with things. As just about every Grandmother knows, you get to a point in life where you have way too many things already.

Young people haven't got there yet. They still believe in things. So they sigh, talking about how, when they closed out Mother's estate, they found closets full of new clothes, nice clothes they gave Mom for her birthday or Christmas over the years. Why wouldn't she wear them? Well, that would have to be addressed on a case-by-case basis. But I feel safe postulating that many a Mother finds, in the course of a long life, clothes she feels comfortable in, both physically and as an expression of her self. Those are what she wears. New clothes? You have to cut off all those tags, wash the chemicals out of them. But first you have to try them on, and since they are the wrong size in the first place, think about returning them. For now, they hang in the closet in the spare bedroom.

The consumer economy postulated that we would always want more things---think redecorating---and always be able to purchase more. I have suggested that for some of us, less has become more desirable, so let's proceed to the second assumption. It leads me to the concept of credit.

I was fascinated to read again this morning that small business in America depends on short-term loans to run itself. I thought of the macroeconomic movement, in which an organization like Heifer may give an impoverished family a start in small business, such as a goat or a flock of chickens. You can do this for, oh, $50. It makes a nice Christmas gift for the grandmother who doesn't wear the pretty sweaters people give her. If you don't know how much $50 worth of chickens can contribute to survival, what with laying eggs and growing more chickens, eggs and chickens you can trade for rice, maybe, and old chickens for the pot . . . if you don't know how that can stand between a family and starvation, ask your grandmother.

If a family can develop a business on a $50 gift, why does Joe the Plumber (ah, there he is!) need small loans in the many thousands just to meet his payroll? Hmm. Maybe his receipts lag behind the actual work. He doesn't demand payment at the time. According to bailout theory, I, Grandma Jeanne, should now bail him out with a small loan.

But I imagine a different scenario; Joe says to his men, you collect when the work is done. If you don't, I won't be able to pay you. With unemployment rising, a lot of people would assent to that. I mean, people drive their own cars to deliver pizza for a lot less than plumbers make.

And in my scenario, I say to Joe in the first place, wait, why should I, the taxpayer, finance your strike-it-rich idea? Instead, you could work for someone else and learn how the plumbing business goes. Save your money until you can strike out on your own. Build a solid reputation for good work and reliability (which will always have stable value), and keep saving some of what you earn. Then, if you must have more, you can hire someone else and make a little profit on his work, until he gets smart and starts his own business too. Simple.