A Critique of Consumer Society -- in Black and White

Elmer Moore turned 90 this spring, the same day that U.S. President Barack Obama issued his call for the economic stimulus plan that is pumping $700 billion into the ailing U.S. economy.
Moore was a 10-year-old kid in Oklahoma when the stock market crashed and signaled the start of the Great Depression back in 1929. His mother worked full-time for $10 a week back then. They lived in a house rented fro $10 a month. A dozen fresh eggs cost a dime, and rice went for three cents a pound.

Moore spoke of all of that and more during a recent visit to his modest, well-kept apartment in the Leimert Park district of Los Angeles. He recalled what a depression looked like back than — and thought about what a recession looks like nowadays.

"I remember the bread lines and soup kitchens and the millionaires jumping out of windows committing suicide," Moore says.
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Walter Melton has lived in Leimert Park for over 50 years. He writes for LABeez.org, an online hub for hyper local, multi ethnic news in Los Angeles.