Maybe people aren't as stupid as I thought

Outsourced Chores Come Back Home

All of these consumers could praise themselves for their newfound frugality in the midst of an economic downturn. But every step they take toward self-reliance — each shrub they prune themselves, each cupcake they bake from scratch — hurts the people and small businesses that have long provided these services professionally.

I think that this is great. It's one thing if you are paying someon 20 dollars to clean your house for an hour so you can go to work (and make 40 dollars) for an hour, but a lot of Americans would rather take the extra hour to watch TV. From the idiot Keynsian (as opposed to the intelligent Keynsian) perspective this is killing a lot of jobs, but in actuality this is only killing the jobs that were based on the demand of our consumer culture. If people can color their hair by themselves, then it may subtract 198 dollars from GDP, but the same benifit is had. Over time the hair stylist will have to shhift her services to a more productive line of work. This is how creative destruction works; in times of economic recession, people have to cut back on their spending - namely the least productive spending. First and foremost, this eliminates the most wasteful spending.

Another benefit - this sort of thing will most likely increase social capital. If I don't want to spend the money to hire a nanny for the evening so I can go out and have a good time with my wife, that means we will be forced to spend the afternoon together as a family. It means that I'll have to cut my childrens hair (undoubtedly a bonding experience) instead of paying someone else to do it. It means car pooling, and thus spending time with other people.

The end of the article states:

As their former nannies, stylists, landscapers, dry cleaners and maids languish, consumers report mixed feelings. They say they sometimes feel guilty about the ripple effects their penny-pinching is having on the livelihoods of others, but at the same time they feel unexpectedly empowered by their rediscovered self-reliance.

But I see absolutely no reason to feel guilty about something like this.