People are broke but willing to risk life and limb for big screen TV's?

How are they buying these items? Credit cards....... no one is paying cash for those things.

I have also been wondering who these people are that can afford such unnecessary items on this day and age. It made me think that maybe these people are living like there is no tomorrow, are fed-up and decide "what the hell, may as well be happy." $pending as if the bills will never arrive.

Let's be careful out there.

Originally posted by dreams n chains
How are they buying these items? Credit cards....... no one is paying cash for those things.

I have also been wondering who these people are that can afford such unnecessary items on this day and age. It made me think that maybe these people are living like there is no tomorrow, are fed-up and decide "what the hell, may as well be happy." $pending as if the bills will never arrive.

Let's be careful out there.

Maybe people are feeling OWS has spelled the end? No debt tomorrow? Live today?

I don''t know but one thing is for sure, if you use credit today, you will lose tomorrow.

we are conditioned to consume......and when that need to consume is at a better deal or during the seasonal ritual that we have been subjected to since childhood.

sure you dont NEED that tv..... but its 60% off this one day/weekend only!!!! i know i cannot afford to put it on my credit card but i dont want to wait till next year..... we are the instant gratification generation. we dont have to work for something we want, we just swipe a piece of plastic and make payments on this play money.... at a price of course.

once upon a time earning a dollar came with a sense of pride.... today we pride ourselves on how much we can spend..... how long we can keep our heads above water.

why a tv you ask..... why not a tv? or any of the hundreds of thousands of products designed to catch your attention and keep you busy....occupied.... distracted from whats important.

to keep you playing the game, to consume, spend spend spend!

the rich arnt rich from shopping on black friday, the rich are rich because its relative. to the rich that tv is cheap regardless of sale or markup.

like you say we freak out over saving pennies.....and it creates dollars for the rich

It seems to me that a part fo the American population has a serious problem with priorities.

My husband has many friends in the US he corresponds with, as he is a collector. One man he writes with claimed he was very poor.....living in a trailer, on disability, struggling....he said he could not afford an object he wanted for hsi collection.

My husband having a compassionate heart, contacted his network of friends and collectors and they all pitched in to buy him this thing, and send it to him, without him knowing how it was bought or by whom.

Later he recieved a photo from this guy of his Humvee, he'd just had custom painted, in front of his trailer!
My husband was so mad, and felt he'd been fooled and taken advantage of. For people in other countries, it is very hard to understand how a person can find a way to have luxuries and still claim to be "poor". To live on disability and drive a very expensive car, have a big screen TV, an iPhone!

Here is what happened, when the economy went into a slump a lot of companies decided to cut the fat. They wanted to get rid of all the personnel that were not pulling their weight. When the economy started to turn around a lot of places realized that they could get the same amount of work done with less people so many of them decided not to hire people. So you see things like people spending money on TVs and Movies because they have the money to blow, but you will also see people protesting how about how they do not have as much money as they want.

Originally posted by darrman
working people have their mindset programmed ,, it seems to me


most who work, only WORK for what they want,,, their needs are secondary,,

na that is not the case for me. I work because I would be so bored if I didn't ! And I work in an area I believe is helping society so that is personally satisfying.

It's called Keeping up with the joneses

People want what other poeple have, regardless of whether or not they can afford it.

People have been so conditioned to believe that these things are of such utter importance to their lives that they are willing to do anything to get it.

Credit, queue up for hours because it's 20% off, miss their utility bills for a month. Cut their food budget in half for a few months.

Society has created a nation of greedy consumerism.

Most of them queueing up, likely have a perfectly good working TV at home already. Yet they want THAT one, becaue it's new and shiny and everyone is buying them.

They are like Conditioned Zombies to the slaughter....."Must buy this, must buy that, my life will now be complete"

Some girl has a perfectly good working Iphone. A new one comes out, she HAS to buy THAT one, because all her friends have them. Same with deal with Ipods and Ipads and Ive been so brainwashed i don't realise i'm buying things i already own just because it has a couple of extra features.

A guy loves to buy DVD's. He's salivating when it reaches the time of the release date. He had pre-ordered and skips merrilly to the shop to collect it. Two months later a better edition has been released and he skips merilly to the shop to collect that one too. He now has two of the same DVD, but he's happy because the last one he bought has 30 seconds extra footage and some extra extras. It doesn't occur to him that if he waited a few months he could have skipped buying the first DVD and bought the second.

The top dogs of big business are rubbing thier hands together with glee and laughing all the way to the bank.

reply to post by jude11

Why is it so important to get that big screen? Maybe to be able to focus on something other than reality in a high def environment?

That's it. The more broke you are the more you look for any easy way of escaping reality even for brief moments. TV is a good choice cause the only thing you have to do is to turn it on and shut your mind down. You can have 45mins of your talk shows, soap operas or whatever nonsense they have very easily.

Reply to post by jude11

I think some of these folks have jobs but can't afford the normal price of a big ticket item.

Still, black friday makes me question xmas itself. Xmas is nothing more than a pagan holiday bastardized by christians.


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

Originally posted by MrWendal
Three words.

50 percent off.

I do not think it is so much a case of "keeping up with the Jones's" anymore. In our society today, the success of an individual very literally defined by what that person owns.

No car? Loser

Don't own your own home? Loser

It no longer matters if you have a job anymore... it is about how much it pays. If you do not have a good paying job, your a loser. This is the world we have made for ourselves. What do you think if you walk into someone's home and see that they do not have a digital recorder, but instead they have a VCR? Well obviously you cant afford TIVO and therefor your not only a loser, your an outdated loser.

Your world is not the world I live in.

What a sad, horrible world you have described...a world populated by petty, striving little people, small in spirit, afraid.

That's not my world. That's not the world of my friends and family. That's not the world of people I associate with, admire, look up to. It's not a world that describes my experiences, my fears, my hopes, or my...basic reality, even.

It doesn't have to be your world either, you know.

reply to post by The Sword


Bastardized...maybe,totally mutated, definitely.Christmas is so removed from it's original meaning,it doesn't even resemble itself(if that makes sense).Peace on earth goodwill towards man has no meaning when people are willing to pepper spray others for an x-box.To be honest the whole thing makes me sick,is a person REALLY defined by what he owns?God I hope not....peace ya;ll

Originally posted by jude11

Originally posted by lifeform11
reply to post by jude11

 

your right, i know people who think they are their cars and we all know somebody who thinks they are their mobile phone surely? they actually try to impress people with their latests gadets they have for it. as a result a persons standing in society is based on what they have consumed. it's nothing new it has just got worse, no kid wanted to be the kid in school who had cheap shoes when i was a kid.

yes sadly this is what people have become. not all people. just alot.

I was the kid with the cheap shoes and bell bottoms when they went out of style. Did I care? No. I liked Bell bottoms.

You sound like me.
I never wanted what everyone else had mostly because everyone else had it.

Also, about TV's--before I met my husband, the 19" was the "big" tv. I had 13" for the kids.
I didn't know I was deprived until I was told.

In all fairness, though, my husband couldn't see the 19" very well and we've had the big one for about 12 years with no plans to upgrade.

It still seems like a waste because we don't turn it on that often.

reply to post by jude11


People these days live for the moment because they fear there is no good future for them and who knows what will happen next in their economy.

The newest generation does not know what it is like to save money. They have buyer's fever and don't have walk away power. They live in a world of hype surrounded by media telling them what they really want versus what they really need.

It makes me sick how people go crazy over technology. They forget that they CANNOT afford these technology toys living on a dog food diet.

I sure hope that people will wake up to the fact that they are broke and cannot afford to make risky purchases. Better money would be spent on counseling services which would help improve their lives rather than living a sedentary lifestyle of a dreamer.

reply to post by jude11

So where is all the money coming from that people can line up for hours, pitch tents and camp out for big screen TV's? Assault each other, risk injury, arrest...

Jude, I've been wondering the same thing. We Americans really have our priorities screwed up.

reply to post by jude11


we are very complex creatures but at the same time we are driven by very primitive desires and thoughts.
companies know how to tap into those thoughts and desires and make us need their products.

If you ever look at early adverts they are basically informing you what the product can do etc.
then a man/movement called Edward Bernays came along and helped shape a monolith that has grown exponentially ever since.

reply to post by Partygirl


Not mine either. The funny thing is that it is the world view painted by many of the programs on television.Not just the programs, but the advertisements and the framing.

That's it. The more broke you are the more you look for any easy way of escaping reality even for brief moments. TV is a good choice cause the only thing you have to do is to turn it on and shut your mind down. You can have 45mins of your talk shows, soap operas or whatever nonsense they have very easily.

Which only leads to more feelings of inadequacy and victim-hood and bears a remarkable similarity to other addictions.

Cut the cord.

The petty economies of the rich are just as amazing as the silly extravagances of the poor.
- William Feather

I have a big hd tv with sky+ and all the other gadgets like ipad, iphone 4 etc but i dont buy anything that i cannot afford. If i cant just buy it i will save and buy the next model up.

If i lost my job and had no money they would be the first to go.

reply to post by PrimalRed


there is a difference between what people want and what people need. i doubt people are protesting becuase they cannot afford a new t.v., i am sure the majority are protesting because they cannot afford to live - ie: unable to eat and keep a roof over their head at the same time even WITH a job (minimum wage).

people are protesting the cost of living and thus unable to provide the basics of living, although i am sure there might be one or two exceptions, but there always is in any type of protest.