Michael Pollan Quotes

Some say the economy means that you have to persuade people to invest in clothes - to buy less things but more expensive things. I disagree - invest in jewelry, or a house, maybe, but not in fashion.

If you go and stop people at a supermarket and ask them for their receipt and say, 'Hey how much did you just spend?' middle class shoppers have no idea. The poor know what they just spent.

With rising incomes, the share of expenditures for food products declines. The resulting shift in expenditures affects demand patterns and employment structures.

People concerned about inflation today tend to buy big houses and nice cars.

When the economy is strong, people tend to buy three things from the top of their wish list. But when things are bad, people often buy only the first thing on their list.

Consumers, when they've only got a couple of quid left in their pockets, are choosy about how they want to spend it.

I have no idea what's going to happen. Who knows - if they can't afford to buy a boat, maybe they buy a print. Who knows what happens with their buck?

In spite of the poor economy, almost 70 percent of Americans occasionally splurge on luxury items -- like a blanket on a plane, or a peanut.

Money not spent on a luxury one considered even briefly is the equivalent of windfall income and should be spent accordingly.

I create my social existence by earning and spending.

The cheaper books become, the less money is spent on books.

The household became the place where the consumption of wages takes place.

This instinctive repulsion which tradespeople inspire in men of sensitive feeling is one of the very rare consolations for being so impoverished which are given to those of us who don’t sell anything to anybody.

She wondered how people would remember her. She had not made enough to spread her wealth around like Carnegie, to erase any sins that had attached to her name, she had failed, she had not reached the golden bough. The liberals would cheer her death. They would light marijuana cigarettes and drive to their sushi restaurants and eat fresh food that had traveled eight thousand miles. They would spend all of supper complaining about people like her, and when they got home their houses would be cold and they'd press a button on a wall to get warm. The whole time complaining about big oil.

I buy whatever I see, but I tend to not spend money just to spend it.

I love cell phones. I see people so happy and proud, walking around. Gesturing, you know. I'm like Karl Marx, I'm up for anything that makes people happy.

Egoism... is not eliminated by economic reorganization or by material abundance. When basic needs are satisfied, new 'needs' emerge. In our society, people want no simply clothes, but fashionable clothes; not shelter, but a house to display their wealth and taste.

Under capitalism the common man enjoys amenities which in ages gone by were unknown and therefore inaccessible even to the richest people. But, of course, these motorcars, television sets and refrigerators do not make a man happy. In the instant in which he acquires them, he may feel happier than he did before. But as soon as some of his wishes are satisfied, new wishes spring up. Such is human nature.

I knew something was wrong with the economy when the shampoo girl at my salon closed on a six bedroom house.

You might be a redneck if your satellite dish payment delays buying school clothes for the kids.

In the consumer economy taste is not the criterion in the marketing of expensive soft drinks, usability is not the primary criterion in the marketing of home and office appliances. We are surrounded with objects of desire, not objects of use.

Those things please more, which are more expensive.

The primary driver of final consumer demand is, of course, the level of disposable income.

When we talk about computer network exploitation, computer network attack, we're not just talking about your home PC. We're talking about your cell phone, and we're also talking about internet routers themselves. The NSA is attacking the critical infrastructure of the internet to try to take ownership of it. They hack the routers that connect nations to the internet itself.

The petty economies of the rich are just as amazing as the silly extravagances of the poor.