They WANT/NEED/MUST HAVE you spend.

[originalpckelly]

If you didn't, you might actually save your money and you might actually get ahead, instead of living in a system where you're indebted and live paycheck to paycheck.

That's why they want you to spend. "They" are the people who are investors and own you *cough* sorry *cough* your future earnings, and any earnings you made in the past.

They have constructed a system that crushes individuality. Everything is the same, with the appearance of individuality.

All clothes purchased at big stores are made by their companies, and they streamline choice to make it more efficient to manufacture your clothes. You can mix and match to create a perceived individuality in your clothing. However, in reality, there are thousands if not millions of people who own the same shirt. At the same moment you're wearing your shirt, there is probably more than a few hundred people wearing the exact same shirt. Think about that. But it doesn't matter, because you're wearing different pants. On the other hand, someone out there is probably wearing the same pants, even in the same size. You're not unique in your clothing choice. You think you are, because you don't easily recognize mix and match outfits as the same thing.

If we were all wearing one piece outfits, the probability we'd run into people wearing the same thing would be quite high. Dresses are a good example of a generally accepted one piece outfit. I remember watching the White House correspondents dinner one year not too long ago. There were three women who were wearing the exact same red dress. Thinking back on it, this shows why we tend not to wear one piece outfits. Can you imagine how weird it would be if you ran into people wearing the same thing all the time? You can't tell, as I previously explained, because the probability you'd run into someone wearing the same exact two piece outfit is dramatically lower than a one piece. Even if you're wearing the same shirt, different bottoms/jacket/prominent accessories would cause you to look different, because the number of combinations is as large as the number of bottoms/jackets/prominent accessories sold in the last few years (or even longer for items that have more of a timeless appeal).

This is just one sector of the economy, but it is such a personal one, it's such a violation of who we are because clothes are in our personal space, right next to our bodies.

If something that we wear as an extension of ourselves is not unique, then what is?

I don't think there is much actual variation/individuality in the America today. You can have anything you like, so long as it's sold by a big corporation and mass manufactured.

We're all wearing the same thing, and yet we'll never see it.

[John Q. Citizen]

1. Consumerism is what drives a capitalistic growth oriented market.

But there are 6 billion humans on this one earth right now.

I think we need to come up with a way to chill out, because never ending growth is called cancer.

[originalpckelly]

2. Capitalism isn't the problem, corporatism/consumerism is.

Capitalism is having private capital, there is nothing wrong with being able to keep what you earn.

Corporations are the antithesis of that, it's a system where people go to work, the benefits of the work go directly to the investors/executives, then they decide what to pay you.

[John Q. Citizen]

4. Yes, capitalism is a system where people go to work, the benefits of the work go directly

to the investors/executives, then they decide what to pay you.

Corporations protect the assets and liability of the wealthy who are attempting to to earn and keep everything.

[originalpckelly]

5. What about self-employed people?

Your concept of capitalism is very limited, you're talking about corporations, not self-employed people or employee owned companies, or partnerships of other types. There are all kinds of business legal structures in capitalism that do not exploit people.

[John Q. Citizen]

18. Are you claiming self employed people don't buy, sell, service, transport, etc consumer goods?

You seem to be holding onto a dream here, a dream about ideology. Capitalism always leads to exploitation. Tell me when it hasn't?

Free enterprise and capitalism aren't synonymous. And capitalism and freedom aren't synonymous

Our current situation is yet another in a long line of examples where capitalism has completely and utterly failed on a massive scale.

However, capitalism can be very useful, as well, for a whole number of results that I would consider to be useful. certainly, it has repeatedly improved the lives of the few over the many. And sometimes it has led to improvements on a broad scale too.

Of course the same can and should be said about socialism as well.


To me there seem to be some industry and production that is particularly well suited to socialism and there is also some industry and production that is quite well suited to free enterprise.

Energy, utilities, transportation planning and implementation, education of the population, health care planning and funding, are some examples of appropriate socialized sectors.

Free enterprise (and yes, even capitalism and the corporations the capitalists created) is pretty good at making shoes.

So lets be honest with ourselves. Capitalism sucks massively but there are certain aspects of it that work well and if we can just learn to put it in a lock box and make sure it doesn't keep fucking up our too big to fail socialized systems and objectives then our outcomes would be far better.

And socialism can also suck really bad. So it needs the capitalists to keep it on it's toes and in line as well. but socialism can also be great. From city parks to fire departments to many many areas, our ability to act as good socialists is critical to our survival.

So I'd have to say I'm for a mixed market. And currently it's way overloaded toward capitalism which is why it's falling over.

[sarcasmo]

3. Once you quit spending it is a easy habit to break, but that first six months your brain says spend

It is an addiction that we have been programmed with.

[TwilightGardener]

6. Sometimes I think the worst thing to happen to America, in terms of

the housing bubble, is HGTV. I used to watch episode after episode of "middle class" people buying, selling and fixing up/decorating homes that looked far better than the way real people live, unless you're a very house-proud suburban mom (I know some like this). The homeowners being featured always have landscaping or single-room remodeling budgets of $40,000 or more--is that realistic? Or they'll have people on, looking at homes to buy with realtors, and the idiot couple will turn their noses up at houses I can't dream of affording in my lifetime, because they don't like the way the bathroom vanity looks, or the master bedroom is "a little too small" when it looks cavernous to me. Over the weekend I watched Candace Olson (the big tall designer gal) fixing up a little girl's huge turret-shaped McMansion bedroom into a "Princess Fantasyland", all furnished by Pottery Barn Kids, of course. Who the fuck has money anymore to professionally design and lavishly furnish/decorate a CHILD'S STUPID BEDROOM??? And everywhere you shop for home-improvement stuff, every store has the same trendy shit, and their displays and showrooms all look the same. I know you were using clothes to illustrate how marketers push mass consumption, it's also in the home-improvement and real estate markets, too.

[originalpckelly]

7. People will always want more, but usually that's checked by scarcity.

You may want a big ass house, but you can't afford one, basically.

The problem with our economy is that instead of having this checked, these forces went wild. People had easy access to credit, so they could buy that extra large house.

[NashVegas]

8. "Flip This House"

Wasn't that on NBC? Or just one of the cable channels.

[originalpckelly]

9. I think that was A&E, wasn't it?

:shrug:

I used to watch it too. :P

I'm part of the problem.

[TwilightGardener]

10. I think HGTV had a show called "Designed to Sell" or something like that--

kind of a house-flipping show, where snotty young twenty-somethings buy California 60's ranches and paint them and install some cheesy "creative" cosmetic fast-fixes with plywood, fabric, etc. Ack--I could never figure out how a potential buyer could be fooled or swayed by that stuff into paying more for a house.

[NashVegas]

12. I Think BBCA Had One Too

I don't know whether they were taking advantage of a crazy or leading it. Only the advertisers' list knows for sure.

[demokatgurrl]

17. Well one way to avoid being influenced by this

is, of course, not to watch this garbage. And not to go out shopping in stores unless you have a specific need and look just for that.
I just don't get it. I've never even see these kinds of shows.But then, I have to admit, "decorating" my house is very low on my priority list. Like right after I get surgically enhanced lips.

[discount moralist]

11. Punk

You don't even see "punks" anymore. The punks are just as homogeneous as a wall streeters now. They all have the same clothes worn in "slightly" different ways to differentiate themselves. "A: Oh wow you have a tongue ring! B:Yeah conformity sucks! A:But doesn't it look just like everybody else's nonconformity? B: Fuck you! Conformist!" It's comical...and sad.

[originalpckelly]

13. Exactly...

I went to this protest last year, and I swear those assholes all looked exactly the same. Vanilla counter culture, no one's thinking, even the alternative people.

[omega minimo]

15. there hasn't been any real new movement in fashion since punk

[omega minimo]

14. "wearing the same thing" and BRANDED

[demokatgurrl]

16. Do you make your own clothes? n/t