stuff

This week, Rachel Wolfe looks at why there might be a limit to the price increases consumers are willing to swallow—and whether we actually can break our addiction to buying cheap stuff.

The rest of the meal, fully prepared and frozen, includes mashed potatoes, gravy, macaroni and cheese, sweet corn, green-bean casserole, stuffing, cranberry relish, dinner rolls, a pumpkin pie and an apple cobbler.

“I’ve seen stuff from me that is online.… They take my face and they put it on another body.… My mom sent me one and I was like, ‘Mom, that’s not me.’

“I see him as godly. That’s the way I see it in my gut. Because all that stuff is what’s holding my people back.”

In the intervening decades, as Americans turned from being primarily the makers of stuff to the buyers of it, Washburn’s consumption soared.