DOPEY, SNEEZY AND OBNOXIOUS

Forget the indexes. Don’t waste your time looking at the leading indicators. Save yourself the expense and aggravation of pouring through high-priced reports. If you want to gauge consumer confidence, keep your eyes on AT&T Wireless.

With what passes as enhanced mobile multimedia capabilities, AT&T Wireless is offering ring tones from the Magic Kingdom. How Goofy is that?

For one to two bucks a pop you, too, could be summoned to the phone by the Seven Dwarfs singing, “Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go.” How do you think that will go over with the crowd on the six-o-nine into downtown?

If you didn’t get enough of “The Circle of Life” from The Lion King the first time around, now you could annoy everyone on the train or bus or at the Bulls game--wait, scratch that, no one goes to Bulls games anymore--and see for yourself how that whole kill-or-be-killed thing works.

Obnoxiousness aside, the public’s willingness to tack a couple of extra bucks onto their cell phone bill just to hear (and promote) “The Little Mermaid” is a sure sign that times aren’t yet as tough as we think. If the U.S. gets anywhere near the 2 million subscribers seen in Japan since August of last year, then we can only make one of two assumptions: Either we will not have reached that point where we feel the need to cut non-essential services in order to keep our heads above water, which is good, or, more likely, we have become such indulgent spendthrifts that we can’t stop ourselves.

Maybe we can no longer identify the non-essentials. If it’s cool or cute or new or trendy, we have to have it, especially around Christmas. No doubt, we have become gadget junkies and novelty narcissists. I’ll bet my Blackberry to your Xbox that, barring an escalation of war, wireless users will consume millions of minutes on Christmas morning calling themselves to show off their new cartoon ring tones.

And I’ll bet my CD burner to your digital camera that by the time turkey is served, they will stuff their cell phones in a corner along with The Singing Santa, Talking Rudolph and, this year, Baby Tad, who sings, among other holiday hits, “Ring Around the Rosie”--perhaps one of the most morbid songs ever taught to a child--over and over and over.

You can’t knock AT&T Wireless. It’s a great way to make a quick million. And I hope they do. Seeing others spend money on cutesy ring tones will give me the confidence in the economy to go out and buy that electronic hairbrush I’ve had my eye on.