Is corporate speech/advertising the same as freedom of speech/expression?
I'm finding it increasingly hard to deal with the level of whoreness our consumer society has reached. America is not alone in this, it's a small world after all, but we do pretty much represent it's current zenith.
This is a queasy feeling I get now and then, like eating spicy food even though you know you're going to pay for it later. I constantly can't believe I ate the whole thing.
And personally I'm as guilty in my own ways. I bought this big ass 52 oz Thermos brand insulated cup at 7-11 for I think it was $4.99, with a free initial fill, and subsequent fills from then on for $1. Hell of a deal really. Problem is, I don't really need to drink one of these suckers a day, or often more then one, but I buy it because it's a better deal.
I could pay half as much more then that for a 20 os can, of course. Bulk packaging is killing us. It makes perfect economic sense that the more you buy the less you pay. I mean, I have a basic understanding of economics and supply and demand. I know the routine. But can society exist in a system so pure as to almost be a vacuum of all else?
America is some fat bastard’s. I don't know if we're the fattest, but we up there. I myself could lose 50 lbs and still be overweight by a fair margin. I'm single, so I cook for one. What do I do, go buy family freaking sized packs of hamburger for a decent price? Or do I pay half as much again more for a one pound package., or do I go get a freaking double hamburger for $1 at McDonald’s?
People aren't fat because they're lazy, they're fat because they're cheap. And by proxy greedy. Consumers are cheap and retailers are greedy. That's the way the system works. You don't make money, you go out of business, plain and simple. The system works against poor people doubly so in that cheap food is almost without the fail the least healthiest. So the most vulnerable segment of our population, by design of the system we operate by, is put at the greatest risk with the least ability to deal with circumstances.
It's cheaper to drop your employees health insurance, so companies do. It's cheaper to pay low wages, so companies do. It's cheaper to hire temp workers then full time, so companies do. 15 years ago there was maybe *one* temp agency in town, and it was largely focused on office workers. Now there's at least a half dozen, with the larger local outfits having multiple offices at the edges of town or in nearby towns. Business is booming.
15 years ago we had one pawnshop 15 miles out of town in an area called Grawn, know affectionately locally as the armpit of Traverse City. Our hick version of the ghetto, though we had the good sense to push them out of town instead of the other way around. The point being, is it was out of town. Now we have at least again a half dozen of them, with one or two having multiple locations, and though they are right on the edge of town, I don't think there is one actual inside the city limits. Although one is barely a half mile out of them.
We've also had the inevitable coming of the check cashing stores, a handful give or take, and we've long had one regional chain rent to own store, we gots more now. But really, the rent to own never grew as much as everything else.
Local color; one of the pawn shops was started by early retiring local cops. Hey, I'm not saying anything, just saying.
What's the point of the pawn shops and such? Why that's the second stage of whoring ourselves out. When we ran out of money, we invented credit. Yeah yeah, credit as a concept has existed since wandering cavemen vied for a place to sleep before paying off the debt the next day by killing something. But we did invent the credit card. The Diners Club card was started I believe in New York by some wealthy shmoe who kept forgetting his wallet at home and, tired of the continued embarrassment of doing so he started a 'diners club' at local restaurants so wealthy patrons could charge their private accounts and not have to wory about the indignitiy of washing dishes to pay off their bill.
Ok, I embellished a bit, but that is who it happened, Google it *grrf*
And not only did we offer credit, it was taken, then abused, and now we have predatory lending. What a concept. Predatory lending. That a civilized society could even let it happen, yet our entire system revolves around it in the final and most important trifecta of inequities, we market it.
We lie to people and make them want things they don't need. In fact, we're damn good at it. Which brings me I guess, since my buzz is starting to wear down and I'm gonna need a pick meh up so the floor show is over.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2126685/
The article concerns one aspect of commerce that the Chinese have yet to master and take from us. That they have effectively stolen the last tired vestiges of our consumer manufacturing base and made a fine eastern art out of making cheap crap, they seem to have yet mastered how to sell that same crap.
Which is where we apparently come in; We can make money by showing them how to effectively sell us all the cheap crap they make.
The enormity of that sentiment blew me away. Is that what we're reduced to? Is that a bright spot in our national economic scene? That we're reduced to showing our competitors how to more effectively push ourselves out of the market?
Man, that is just messed up.
For a closing, I was listening to NPR in the car a while ago, as I went to Burger King for dinnre because it's easier and quicker. But I kept my integrity, I didn't super size. Anyway, they were talking about some dudes book, and while it sounded interesting, the thing that struck me ws a comment on Jefferson or Harrison, don't remember, who back before the War of 1812, they slapped a total ban on all goods going in or out of the country. No imports or exports.
The point was to get the British to stop harassing our ships, and there was something in there about Napoleon offering up Florida or something, but that's just filler here. And that came back to me as I started writing this. I wasn't originally going to include it but it seemed to cap the train of thought off nice.
At the time we grossly overestimated Europe’s and Britains needs for our then exports. They could last longer then we could, and did, and we eventually had to send some ships down there and smack 'em around. Ah yeah, that was part of the discussion as well, how Oliie Wendell was creating some officer corps or some such.
Anyway, they underestimated then, but we could do it now. The world doesn't need what we got, they need us to need what they got. If the US ended all imports and exports and suddenly went self sufficient (yes I know it's improbably, just illustrating), half the world would be put out of a job.
Not long ago there was some Bush administration hack, can't remember who, I'd Google it but I'm a lazy slut, actually put US debt in the perspective that by creating that debt, America was simply being a good world citizen, by providing all those people in other countries with our jobs. Our debt was actually a good thing for the world.
We aren't the fount of evil in the world, but we do create the atmosphere for it to thrive in; cheap greed. Capitalism, while being a great boon for capitalism, has failed society. The Dad that works a well paying job with good health benefits while Mom stays home and raises the kids is dead. They died long ago. That is so far from the norm it's almost fantasy.
We've elevated it to such a hight that advertising rests on the same lofty level as individual freedom of speech and expression. A corporate entity enjoys the same level of freedom of speech as an individual citizen, and advertising the same level as freedom of expression.
Well crap, that's an inglorious end to my otherwise playful romp. Just spent the last 20 minutes from when I typed the above paragraph and now this one talking to my Dad about work and other crap, and I have no bearing what so ever now.
And so I close.
This is a queasy feeling I get now and then, like eating spicy food even though you know you're going to pay for it later. I constantly can't believe I ate the whole thing.
And personally I'm as guilty in my own ways. I bought this big ass 52 oz Thermos brand insulated cup at 7-11 for I think it was $4.99, with a free initial fill, and subsequent fills from then on for $1. Hell of a deal really. Problem is, I don't really need to drink one of these suckers a day, or often more then one, but I buy it because it's a better deal.
I could pay half as much more then that for a 20 os can, of course. Bulk packaging is killing us. It makes perfect economic sense that the more you buy the less you pay. I mean, I have a basic understanding of economics and supply and demand. I know the routine. But can society exist in a system so pure as to almost be a vacuum of all else?
America is some fat bastard’s. I don't know if we're the fattest, but we up there. I myself could lose 50 lbs and still be overweight by a fair margin. I'm single, so I cook for one. What do I do, go buy family freaking sized packs of hamburger for a decent price? Or do I pay half as much again more for a one pound package., or do I go get a freaking double hamburger for $1 at McDonald’s?
People aren't fat because they're lazy, they're fat because they're cheap. And by proxy greedy. Consumers are cheap and retailers are greedy. That's the way the system works. You don't make money, you go out of business, plain and simple. The system works against poor people doubly so in that cheap food is almost without the fail the least healthiest. So the most vulnerable segment of our population, by design of the system we operate by, is put at the greatest risk with the least ability to deal with circumstances.
It's cheaper to drop your employees health insurance, so companies do. It's cheaper to pay low wages, so companies do. It's cheaper to hire temp workers then full time, so companies do. 15 years ago there was maybe *one* temp agency in town, and it was largely focused on office workers. Now there's at least a half dozen, with the larger local outfits having multiple offices at the edges of town or in nearby towns. Business is booming.
15 years ago we had one pawnshop 15 miles out of town in an area called Grawn, know affectionately locally as the armpit of Traverse City. Our hick version of the ghetto, though we had the good sense to push them out of town instead of the other way around. The point being, is it was out of town. Now we have at least again a half dozen of them, with one or two having multiple locations, and though they are right on the edge of town, I don't think there is one actual inside the city limits. Although one is barely a half mile out of them.
We've also had the inevitable coming of the check cashing stores, a handful give or take, and we've long had one regional chain rent to own store, we gots more now. But really, the rent to own never grew as much as everything else.
Local color; one of the pawn shops was started by early retiring local cops. Hey, I'm not saying anything, just saying.
What's the point of the pawn shops and such? Why that's the second stage of whoring ourselves out. When we ran out of money, we invented credit. Yeah yeah, credit as a concept has existed since wandering cavemen vied for a place to sleep before paying off the debt the next day by killing something. But we did invent the credit card. The Diners Club card was started I believe in New York by some wealthy shmoe who kept forgetting his wallet at home and, tired of the continued embarrassment of doing so he started a 'diners club' at local restaurants so wealthy patrons could charge their private accounts and not have to wory about the indignitiy of washing dishes to pay off their bill.
Ok, I embellished a bit, but that is who it happened, Google it *grrf*
And not only did we offer credit, it was taken, then abused, and now we have predatory lending. What a concept. Predatory lending. That a civilized society could even let it happen, yet our entire system revolves around it in the final and most important trifecta of inequities, we market it.
We lie to people and make them want things they don't need. In fact, we're damn good at it. Which brings me I guess, since my buzz is starting to wear down and I'm gonna need a pick meh up so the floor show is over.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2126685/
The article concerns one aspect of commerce that the Chinese have yet to master and take from us. That they have effectively stolen the last tired vestiges of our consumer manufacturing base and made a fine eastern art out of making cheap crap, they seem to have yet mastered how to sell that same crap.
Which is where we apparently come in; We can make money by showing them how to effectively sell us all the cheap crap they make.
The enormity of that sentiment blew me away. Is that what we're reduced to? Is that a bright spot in our national economic scene? That we're reduced to showing our competitors how to more effectively push ourselves out of the market?
Man, that is just messed up.
For a closing, I was listening to NPR in the car a while ago, as I went to Burger King for dinnre because it's easier and quicker. But I kept my integrity, I didn't super size. Anyway, they were talking about some dudes book, and while it sounded interesting, the thing that struck me ws a comment on Jefferson or Harrison, don't remember, who back before the War of 1812, they slapped a total ban on all goods going in or out of the country. No imports or exports.
The point was to get the British to stop harassing our ships, and there was something in there about Napoleon offering up Florida or something, but that's just filler here. And that came back to me as I started writing this. I wasn't originally going to include it but it seemed to cap the train of thought off nice.
At the time we grossly overestimated Europe’s and Britains needs for our then exports. They could last longer then we could, and did, and we eventually had to send some ships down there and smack 'em around. Ah yeah, that was part of the discussion as well, how Oliie Wendell was creating some officer corps or some such.
Anyway, they underestimated then, but we could do it now. The world doesn't need what we got, they need us to need what they got. If the US ended all imports and exports and suddenly went self sufficient (yes I know it's improbably, just illustrating), half the world would be put out of a job.
Not long ago there was some Bush administration hack, can't remember who, I'd Google it but I'm a lazy slut, actually put US debt in the perspective that by creating that debt, America was simply being a good world citizen, by providing all those people in other countries with our jobs. Our debt was actually a good thing for the world.
We aren't the fount of evil in the world, but we do create the atmosphere for it to thrive in; cheap greed. Capitalism, while being a great boon for capitalism, has failed society. The Dad that works a well paying job with good health benefits while Mom stays home and raises the kids is dead. They died long ago. That is so far from the norm it's almost fantasy.
We've elevated it to such a hight that advertising rests on the same lofty level as individual freedom of speech and expression. A corporate entity enjoys the same level of freedom of speech as an individual citizen, and advertising the same level as freedom of expression.
Well crap, that's an inglorious end to my otherwise playful romp. Just spent the last 20 minutes from when I typed the above paragraph and now this one talking to my Dad about work and other crap, and I have no bearing what so ever now.
And so I close.
posted by opus512 at 10:59 PM
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