Signs of a declining economy

[MarkP]

I think there is some overlap with the rise of storage facilities. A few years back they were springing up all over the place. Why now? Why weren't there very many 20 years ago? Partly it is the economic downturn, with people having to move due to the wild real estate swings, and having to dump their collection of junk. People have always had junk though. I think today there is lots more junk. Everything is made in China and sold at ridiculously low prices. I sometimes wonder as I wander through Wal-Mart, how a profit can be made on some cheap utensil that costs $1.99 in 2010 dollars, when it had to be shipped all the way here from China then stocked by an employee who (I hope) gets health insurance. Even if they don't get full benefits my gut still tells me that there is an incredibly small profit margin on this junk so the difference is made up in quantity. Huge quantities of junk. Everywhere. Owned by everyone, even poor people who when they have to move mistakenly confuse what they payed for something with what it is worth, or who even more mistakenly confuse their decision to buy something at one point with a more general assessment of the value of that purchase. It can be very difficult to police yourself and go "Whoa, what was I thinking?" My niece came home from college with the concept of shifting baselines where for example people of today think a 150 lb ahi is big but a generation ago 300 lbs got the same reaction. People don't notice the creep towards junk because it is gradual. Same with the proliferation of cell phones, Ipods, and all the other trappings of status in the modern world. Gradually we have become accustomed to both the physical and emotional trappings of the modern world, so much of which is junk.