January 3, 2003

The Politics of Mass Consumption in America

By LIZABETH COHEN

I was born in February 1952, and, after what was then a standard five-day stay at the hospital, I moved into my first home, in Paramus, N.J., a brand-new ranch-style house in one of the many subdivisions being carved out of Paramus's woods and farms. My parents had recently bought this 960-square-foot house for $11,990, thanks to $2,000 in savings crucially supplemented by a 4.5-percent GI mortgage for which my father qualified as a World War II vet. The GI Bill had already subsidized his

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