Consumerism

Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the purchase of goods and services in ever-greater amounts.

I wrote a long tirade about consumerism and how I see it in my life and those around me (and through the internet), but I deleted it. Because I like brevity. Just watch this video:

One of my guilty habits is that I like disposable razors. I found that a reusable razor would get grimy faster and is harder to clean (you know, with those little groves and grippers for your hands?), so I switched to disposable. I'm going to vow to find a reusable, quality razor and stop buying disposable.

Flip It Friday: C is for Cookie... or Congress

larger graphic here

Learn more about Sesame Workshop’s early childhood initiatives in the United States

Did you watch Sesame Street?

Do you think the government should fund Sesame Street and things like it?

Should it be on the chopping block, considering out national debt?

How would you advice congress?

Tipsy Tuesday: Get Learned

Attention undecided voters and people who like quizzes:

Take this quiz to see which candidate aligns with your votes!

As always, my results are here. Look at them after you take the test so you are completely fresh-minded as you answer. Keep in mind that there are more options for your answers if you click the 3rd choice of "choose another stance".

Share yours?

Nice to meet you, Jill.

You can stop reading after the 8th paragraph if political musings aren't your thing.

This past weekend I planned to sit in the bathtub with wine, bubbles and Talk-to-Speech on Kindle while scalding off my top later of skin along with my worries.

Instead I walked a mile, took a train, walked 5 minutes, took another train and spend all of my Saturday morning and some of the afternoon crossing Chicago and Northern Indiana to spend time with the Mr.'s family.

We are a one-car household and the Mr. had taken it to a wedding in Purdue-land where he's from.  While on his way he got a call from his aunt in N. Indiana that if we wanted to see Grandpa, we should come soon.

That translates to "He's on his deathbed", right?

Wrong.

He answered the door himself and looked super surprised and sorta peeved that we showed up on such short notice.

Of course he wasn't really peeved. He just thought that everyone was assembling to pull the plug on him. Shoot, I'd be alarmed too. "Am I being put down?" Is what I would think.

So over-worry aside, it was a good trip.

Then Grandpa gave us some reading material for the way home. Cut me to swearing at page 5 of 8 of a local man's rant on how America's the greatest and how it totally screwed if we don't do something about it. (Confused? You should be!)

I wont go into what was said (total racism: "The U.S. is great... as long as you can just put those black people in a box and ship them back to where they came"), but I'll give you a hint: as a Jew he was surprisingly removed from what it's like to be oppressed.

That was just the icing on the cake.

Being in Indiana made me realize just how different states can be. We live right next door to a state with similar demographics, similar climate, similar crops, accents and landscapes. But turn on the TV in IN and you get an expensive, long commercial on "clean coal" with a male voice-over featuring sexy female models, naked under overalls, using jackhammers in a glistening mine of what looks like black diamonds.

From a marketing standpoint, the intended audience for this commercial would be straight men in labor jobs. Or just men for that matter. 

Meanwhile in Illinois our "clean coal" ad is a woman in a pantsuit in front of a white screen speaking for herself and discussing options with minimal graphics and lots of jargon.

The audience here would be intellectuals, men and women. The words speak a lot louder than the images. 

But note that BOTH are conservative viewpoints.

During our visit and discussion the Mr.'s Grandpa came back to one underlying statement, "Let each state do for themselves."

He wants to get rid of several agencies in the government (and hilariously, he couldn't remember them just as Rick Perry couldn't remember the Department of Energy), one of them being the Department of Education.

I asked him what about the kids in Alabama or New Mexico who receive some of the worst education in the U.S.

"Let them figure it out."

But kids can't vote. Unlike any other issue (gay marriage, abortion rights, healthcare, taxes), the citizens most affected are those that cannot vote and some of them cannot even write (to their congressman).

So should New Mexico just fall by the wayside? 
Should it be up to the states? 
What if you were a child/parent in Nevada? (the worst state for education as of this year)

Massachusetts is #1 in education. Maybe Mitt-bot has a plan he can employ for the nation that he used in MA. 

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Thoughtful Thursdays: Educate Before You Pontificate

It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a 'dismal science.' But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance. 

- Murray Rothbard

Remember this post?

I cannot say that I am a 100% Rothbard fan, but I do enjoy this quote and appreciate the sentiment.

Source: mises.org via Ignacio on Pinterest

Thoughtful Thursday: Free Box Economics

By Sara Gilbert on Get Rich Slowly

"When I think about it back at home, this chair — and the others at my kitchen table — are pretty radical. I’m rejecting the idea that I must buy a new chair from IKEA or a furniture store, one that’s made in a factory by workers who earn a wage (living or no), and purchased at a retail store whose workers are also paid. I brought it home on my bike, oil companies and American car manufacturers be damned. I did not create any new demand for new things.

But I saved an inestimable amount of future costs, from the disposal of the old chair to the environmental costs of manufacturing and shipping, to the health costs of workers who manufacture and ship these products, right down to my own feelings of well-being and not-argument. I don’t have to ask my husband for money to buy a new chair; we won’t argue about money, today."

Source: sfgirlbybay.com via Emily on Pinterest