Illusioned Masses?

On the tv right now, or at any point during the day... You will find massive amounts of advertisements. Most are cleaning products. Fast food items. Nothing too far out-of-reach as far as the average person's ability to buy.

Right now, there are commercials of more expensive items, being called "perfect Mothers' Day" gifts. A bit more expensive for the average person. But just like Christmas, you cannot put a physical price on making someone in your family happy. Afterall, most of us are taught from a young age that we must spend money to make people we care about happy.

Flowers, diamonds, as long as we've got a credit card, mom can have it all.

Christmas is about the same, but advertising targets us for the much more expensive things that the more "well off" people here will tell the rest of us that we should not have, as it's our fault the country's debt is so bad because of this Our children in particular, are victim to these commercials, peer pressure for the newest video game system. It's Christmas, afterall, it can go on credit, and you can spend the next 12 months making payments until its time to max out the cards for Christmas again the next year!

We all know that there is something wrong with this system. As the price for fuel, and necessities like food and the electric bill go up, available funds for those special extras go down.... Now, I am hearing a whole lot about people struggling to pay these gas prices, leasing a NEW CAR. Hybrid, or even just better milage than their current. This is a purchase they can be paying on for years, and will definitely increase their total amount of debt.

Well, it's not news that we are encouraged everyday to spend money we do not have. I don't believe that most Americans know what it means, to live below one's means. But, we CAN live without all those extras, tough as it may be.

I do wonder though, as things get worse, if those big companies with the EXPENSIVE toys, will be taking some major losses, as people continue to struggle and find themselves less able to buy this stuff? Will some of these companies close up? Or is it possible they will find some way to take advantage of us as well, even though we can no longer buy their products?

Not that I am worried about NINTENDO, Panasonic, RCA, Toshiba, SONY, Pioneer, but I wonder if technology can come to a slow-down?

Ok, I don't know if there is much to this, or if there will simply ALWAYS be people well-off enough to keep such corporations in business. But there are my random thoughts for the day.