Can someone please provide feedback on Argument analysis?

[gursharankang]

ESSAY QUESTION:
The following appeared in a newspaper editorial during the holiday shopping season:

"Americans spend far too much of their time buying and consuming non-essential goods. Studies show that, on average Americans spend over a quarter of their leisure time shopping. As such, it is no secret why America is losing its competitive edge relative to other countries. Instead of spending their time productively, Americans are wasting time through frivolous consumption. In order to counteract this trend, Americans should spend more time focused on personal and communal development--by, for example, pursuing educational advancement or participating in volunteer opportunities."

Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. Point out flaws in the argument's logic and analyze the argument's underlying assumptions. In addition, evaluate how supporting evidence is used and what evidence might counter the argument's conclusion. You may also discuss what additional evidence could be used to strengthen the argument or what changes would make the argument more logically sound.


RESPONSE:
This article was published during holiday season which certainly answers why participants spent quarter of their leisure time shopping. Author of an article assumed that this trend is not seasonal and in fact continues throughout the year. An additional assumption used is that more shopping adversely affects country's competitive edge. It could just be that even though Americans spend quarter of their time shopping but the reality is that due to bad weather outside during holiday season most people tend to go shopping in covered malls not to shop but to get some physical activities to stay fit during the winters.

It would be beneficial to understand shopping trends during holiday season and other times of the year. We should also learn the nature of shopping to understand what proportion of it was done for personal items versus gifts which could purely be due to the time of the year. If we learn that the same trend follows throughout the year and on an average a quarter of the leisure time is spent on shopping then we would be able to prove the first two statements of an article.

An implication of shopping as a loss to country's competitive edge is confusing at the best. I believe consumer spending is essential to keep gross domestic product growth rate healthy. If consumers have confidence in economic growth and stability of the country, it gets reflected in consumer spending. We had few instances where United States of America used bailout money to influx more cash into the society. This was done to achieve better consumer spending as that can fuel economic recovery and further improve country's competitive edge on a global scale.

I do agree that there needs to be a good balance between consumer spending and consumer savings which can not only control growth of the country but can also prepare it for global recession. It is also essential that American's focus on personal and communal development will help the country recover from economic recession and hence will help improve financial competitive edge on an international scale. But I am not quite sure how this is tied to the shopping done during the holiday season which could probably be just a seasonal finding and more research needs to be done to understand an actual trend and how that affects GDP.

[StaceyKoprince]

Hi, thanks for posting your essays! Just an FYI that instructors don't grade or give feedback on essays (see the forum guidelines for details).

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