Gangsta99
24th June 2010, 07:03 PM
Well this summer to maintain a part time status until I finish up my last couple classes in fall to get my degree in business management I am taking 2 history classes. One which is the history of the United States from 1920 to current and the other is a Western History from the 1800s up to now.
Well a couple days into these classes which thankfully are online I am losing my damn mind. The U.S. history class is all about doing these online discussion forums for every topic each week.
The first question for discussion is this:
So, where do we go from here? Is it our right as Americans to consume? Is it our right as Americans, who expends a significant amount of their national budget on foreign aid, to enjoy themselves, regardless of whether there is an environmental and social cost? Heck we fought and protected the world from Nazis, Communists, and Islamic Extremist, isn’t it our right to enjoy the fruits of our labor? For your forum, discuss Affluenza, Do we have a responsibility to the world or are the consequences of our consumption, the cost the world must pay for our generosity?
Well I am one of 3 people in the class of around 20 who thinks we have the right to consume, the rest of the class believes we have no such right and that we should continue to give to the less fortunate countries no matter how bad things are in our borders.
I have managed to so far call 2 people Socialists, I mentioned Zionists controlling the media and our government in honor of GSU, and we have started to discuss BP and the gulf oil spill and I keep quoting Ponce in regards to how a bunch of people are gonna die from this. Oh yeah and I was even able to bring up how great of neighbors we are to Mexico since we give so many of their citizens such great support and benefits when they sneak into our country. I have even mentioned how corrupt our government is with spending and that I think they are trying to destroy the middle class.
I think going forward I will post weekly questions to these boards and post responses based on what my fellow GSUS members feel is the best response. I don't know if I like my odds of not getting kicked out of the class, the professor is a black female, but what the hell this is good entertainment.
For entertainment here are some of the responses from the class to the above question.
According to theaffluenzaproject.com, Affluenza is a harmful or unbalanced relationship with money or its pursuit and in the individual as the collective addictions, character flaws, psychological wounds, neurosis and behavioral disorders caused or exacerbated by the presence of or desire for wealth. So basically Affluenza is much like influenza with both causing a person to be miserable and ill. According to affluenza.org, millions of Americans report feeling exhausted, pressured, and hungry for more balanced lives. Americans today are filled with greed and want everything even if it is beyond their means. This hunger for power and possessions leads to extreme debt. Americans run up credit cards and loans and then can't afford them but life in America is simply to file bankruptcy. According to pbs.org, in 1996, more than 1 million Americans declared bankruptcy, three times as many as in 1986. Americans have more than 1 billion credit cards, and less than one-third of credit card holders pay off their balances each month. Consumerism is largely responsible for American's spending habits. We see commercials advertising all the latest and neatest things, for example, cars with automatic parking assistance, back-up cameras, the newest and latest computers and cell phones. A person can go out one day and buy a new cell phone that just came out and tomorrow you will see a commercial for a newer model with more gizmos and gadgets. Some Americans will never be satisfied with what they have when the friends or neighbors have more or what they consider better. People in this country act as though we have no economical crisis, environmental crisis, and that things are just a bed of roses. We have people who are starving, sick, and going without while we have telethons to raise billions and trillions of dollars to send to other countries. I guess people do it so someone will envy them and want to kiss the ground they walk on. If people have so much money to give away and send out of this country then why not keep it here and send it to St. Jude's or help fund a project to find cures.
**********************
According to Investopedia, Affluenza is "A social condition arising from the desire to be more wealthy, successful or to "keep up with the Joneses". Affluenza is symptomatic of a culture that holds up financial success as one of the highest achievements. People said to be affected by affluenza typically find that the very economic success they have been so vigorously chasing ends up leaving them feeling unfulfilled, and wishing for yet more wealth." The United States is definitely affected by Affluenza, because our culture believes that satisfaction will come with posessions and financial success. While consumerism,another name for Affluenza, is supposed to make people feel better and more self fufilled, more and more Americans are feeling exhausted and levels of depression are rising. " In 1998, over 1.4 million families declared personal bankruptcy, credit card debt reached new heights, and the personal savings rate fell to the lowest level since the Great Depression. Millions of Americans report feeling exhausted, pressured, and hungry for more balanced lives. They are seeking greater purpose and more free time to spend with family and friends." said Whitedwarf.org. While Americans only make up about 5% of the world's population, we exhaust more than 80% of the world's personal consumable goods. I think Americans do not have the right to use up so many resources when we're just one nation out of many, yet we use the most resources and create the most waste. Our consumerism lifestyles are out of control. For example, according to pbs.org, "since 1950, Americans alone have used more resources than everyone who ever lived before them. Each American individual uses up 20 tons of basic raw materials annually. Americans throw away 7 million cars a year, 2 million plastic bottles an hour and enough aluminum cans annually to make six thousand DC-10 airplanes." If we keep up these habits that we have now we are going to completely deplete all of Earth's natural resources and fill it with more waste than it can absorb. At the rates that this lifestyle is increasing, this will happen faster than we can come up with solutions for it. Americans are overworking themselves just so they can buy luxuries that they don't need or will ever barely use. Then once they get tired of this luxury they'll just toss it out to the garbage. They also don't have time for the things that people value as important, such as kids, family, friends, and hobbies. Couples talk for only about 12 minutes a day and parents only play with there kids on average of 40 minutes a week. The biggest example of consumerism is the automobile,during the 1920's when the automobile was first introducted, automobile registration soared from 8 million to 23 million. Cars were considered a necessity rather than a luxury beacause "mass production and competition made cars affordable even to some working class families," according to A People and A Nation. People left other means of transportation like street cars or bicycles for the popular car. Commercials also help consumerism by showing us the hotest, latest products that make people feel like they have to have it. Cars are also affected by this, people will trade in a perfectly good paid off car for a brand new car because they just weren't satisfied by the old one anymore. Consumerism is wrong and we must take actions to stop it before it grows so large that we deplete all of the Earth's resources or fill it up with so much waste we can't survive. People reached the highest percentage of what they call "very happy" in 1957 according to pbs.org, yet they consumed less than half of what we do now. If people want to see a better longer lasting Earth we must, "reduce our overall consumption of natural resources, shift our consumption toward green goods produced by sustainable businesses using clean, efficient technology, and promote efforts to stabalize global population so that everyone on earth can have access to adequate resources," says Whitedwarf.org. On a brighter note, millions have already began to downshift (which is they voluntarily reduced their work hours and spending to spend more time on what matters most, their families and interests). "Studies show that 87% of those downshifters are happy with the change," says Whitedwarf.org. Changing can be as easy as using, energy efficient products, consuming less and using less resources, not buying things you don't need or already have, etc. If American's just changed their attitudes and behavioral pattern, change could be easy for the world, if not we could be leading to a devasting extinction caused by ourselves.
*******************************
I don't think it is our "right" to consume. We do spend a lot of money on foreign aid. I think that is our responsibilty as one of the wealthiest nations in the world. Even though we are in the middle of a new depression, we are still better off than most of the nations in the world. What we view as hardship, other countries would still view as luxury. Very few of us know what true hardship is.
With this luxury of plenty and agencies that we can go to for help comes the responsiblity to not be an international bully. We also have the responsiblity to no squander what we do have. With the exception of this latest war, most other developed countries in the world experienced the same wars we did. They have lived through the same economic setbacks we have. Very few of them feel that they have the right to consume with no regard to their neighbors well being. In the end, what we do in another country does eventually affect us. Whether the cost in environmental, economic or human their is a price that must be paid in the end when we consume irresponsibly.
So the bottom line is, consumption in and of itself isn't bad. Being irresponsible and not caring what your consumption costs others in the world is bad. We need to be good neighbors and be responsible with what we have. Often times when you aren't responsible, you will lose what you have.
***********************
Affluenza was fueled by industrialism. As industrialism grew so did the consumers desire to obtain newer and better material possessions. Some of these possessions made life easier such as electricity, hot water and the automobile. For women however, new products such as vacuum cleaners , washing machines and commercial soap put greater demands on their time. (A People and a Nation, pg 689).This began the age of keeping up with the Joneses by trying to buy bigger and better things than their neighbor had. An example of this can be found in the text where it is stated that by 1929 2/3 of Americans lived in homes with electricity compared to 1/6 in 1912. (pg 683)
Advertising was a large part of consumerism. Advertisers for products that are used to clean your house, used guilt on women to sell their products.(A People and a Nation, pg 698). By 1929 more money was spent on advertising than on all types of formal education. Cosmetics manufacturers used movie stars and beauty tips to entice women to buy their products. Radio played a big part in advertising. Over 10 million Americans owned radios and spent $850 million on radio equipment a year by 1929. Programming focused mostly on entertainment because it drew larger audiences than educational programming making profits higher for advertisers.(pg684)
Affluenza has impacted more than families and societies. It has also effected the environment. With industrialism ever growing and advancing technology the earth has suffered. We as people have taken a great deal from it and have not given much back. In the article "Effects of Consumerism" it says that the producing, processing, and consuming of material goods requires the use of natural resources such as wood, fossil fuels, water, and ore. Then factories have to be built that when operating create toxic byproducts. These factories then produce the goods,such as cars, that in turn cause pollution.
I think that Americans are on the right track to stop the earth's destruction through car pooling, public transit, or riding bikes instead of driving. Some of us also recycle and try to buy energy efficient appliances. I also think that all people are responsible for the consequences of consumption, not just Americans. All countries should try to find ways in which to deal with their issues that have come from affluenza.
******************************
Is it our right to consume? Well, since I've never known consumption to be a right, I'd say no. Do we have the right to be happy? Of course. Of course, rights come with limitations. Your rights cannot infringe on someone else's. Everyone has the right to be happy, but they must find acceptable means. Yes, we've "fought Communism and Islamic extremists." Oh, and we've also screwed over the Middle East, sans Israel, through multiple steps. Does that add or take away from our rights to enjoy ourselves? Those points are irrelevant. Our moral compass can be argued, but that's an entirely different subject.
According to page 688 of our book for this class, we began building suburbs as they became more popular in the 1920s. We paved through woodland in order to make wide highways, and destroyed a lot of green. Affluenza is more of a barrier around fulfillment and happiness, because this condition allows us to obtain neither. As our module stated, the American Dream was painted in such a way that it made us want that much more, despite how miniscule "that much more" was. That lead to waste of things that were in fine condition. This is where whether or not we have a right to indulge comes in. Our indulgences affect the environment, which affects the rest of the world. We loves cars, use them (obviously), and fill them up with gas. Gas pollutes the air. The world needs air to survive. Unfortunately, the people who suffer from affluenza keep buying new cars, therefore using more gas. It's something that's too subjective to be argued objectively and explicitly.
On a short side-note, our "generosity" can easily be seen as a bad thing. We fought Communism in the Vietnam war. Awesome. My favorite part is when we abandoned South Vietnam after we got them into that mess, and they all got slaughtered. How generous of us. America has done so much bad, that the attempted reasoning of us enjoying ourselves should probably have been left out of the question.
Now, if the question is asking about affluenza in terms of us exhausting (as part of the wealthiest part of the world) 80% of the world's personal consumable goods, then we definitely owe it to the world to cut down. Nothing justifies nor warrants that much consumption. We don't need that much, and a ton of it goes to waste. Given our past actions, some would say that we should be part of the suffering percentage of the world. If more Americans opened their minds and peered into what affluenza really is, I think the consumption wold slow down. We're too myopic at the moment to see what all this is costing the rest of the world.
*********************
I very much believe it is our right as Americans to consume the products of our labor. This once great nation lead the world in almost every manufacturing category and we still feed a large portion of the world with food from our country. We spend billions a year on foreign aid with no true return on investment, especially since a large portion of the world hates or despises us. Big business and big money dragged us into both WWI and WWII for the sake of saving our allies from bankruptcy and destruction with the upside being economic and scientifc advances coming from the ashes of war. As U.S. citizens we deserve to consume the products that we use in our daily lives, whether it is oil based products, evil light bulbs which will soon be banned or even cheap Chinese junk. So what we make up 5% of the world and consume 80% of the worlds consumable goods? This is our right, other countries who are playing catch up will eventually being using way more consumable goods then the U.S. It is sad that a large amount of our manufacturing has gone overseas and that we rely heavily now on foreign countries for the products we made in our nation 20 or more years ago on our own soil but we still have the right to use those products however we want within reason and using common sense.
I don't think we have a responsibility to the world at all. Our government which has lost sight of its true reason for being, which is to be there for the people and by the people, not the other way around, seems to think they owe everything to foreign countries and companies instead of to its citizens. Not really sure what the true consequences of our consumption is anymore when it comes to the rest of the world, especially with the Associated Press and most major Media outlets being owned by the same organizations who are also behind some of the major players around the world in regards to corporations and governments, but things like Global Warming and Peak Oil to me are bogus and are used as scare tactics to take away more of our rights and to tax us in more interesting ways.
Marketing has played a big part over the past 50 years in making Americans want so much when it comes to goods. This brilliant marketing is also what has turned some of the biggest U.S. companies into the biggest players in the world like McDonalds or WalMart. Now the downside to where this marketing is heading is the idea that the future for us is Globalization. Globalization is bad for our country because it ties our entire economy into the rest of the worlds and we get to go down with everyone else if things start going south, an example being the European Union going broke or China/India overspending during a booming economy and the bursting of multiple bubbles in those economies.
Now Affluenza is a problem and to me is a different story from us having the right to consume whatever we want. Remember I said within reason and using common sense. Well spending way more on material goods and services than you can afford isn't within reason or using common sense. Our government has lost its mind and lost control due to Affluenza and so has a large portion of our population. 50 years ago a large portion of the population believed in having a savings or nest egg and it was quite common to pass on some wealth to your children when you passed away. This is very uncommon now in this day and age. People believe it is ok to carry large amounts of debt with no real way to pay that debt off in the near future. Same goes now for our government. Personally I don't think our government will ever be able to right things unless something drastic happens like hyperinflation, telling all the foreign countries and companies that own U.S. debt we are defaulting on said debt, or by revaluing the U.S. dollar to the extreme. We the people will pay for those losses in the end no matter what happens. Affluenza is a real problem for our country and the world but again is different from us having the right to consume goods.
Well a couple days into these classes which thankfully are online I am losing my damn mind. The U.S. history class is all about doing these online discussion forums for every topic each week.
The first question for discussion is this:
So, where do we go from here? Is it our right as Americans to consume? Is it our right as Americans, who expends a significant amount of their national budget on foreign aid, to enjoy themselves, regardless of whether there is an environmental and social cost? Heck we fought and protected the world from Nazis, Communists, and Islamic Extremist, isn’t it our right to enjoy the fruits of our labor? For your forum, discuss Affluenza, Do we have a responsibility to the world or are the consequences of our consumption, the cost the world must pay for our generosity?
Well I am one of 3 people in the class of around 20 who thinks we have the right to consume, the rest of the class believes we have no such right and that we should continue to give to the less fortunate countries no matter how bad things are in our borders.
I have managed to so far call 2 people Socialists, I mentioned Zionists controlling the media and our government in honor of GSU, and we have started to discuss BP and the gulf oil spill and I keep quoting Ponce in regards to how a bunch of people are gonna die from this. Oh yeah and I was even able to bring up how great of neighbors we are to Mexico since we give so many of their citizens such great support and benefits when they sneak into our country. I have even mentioned how corrupt our government is with spending and that I think they are trying to destroy the middle class.
I think going forward I will post weekly questions to these boards and post responses based on what my fellow GSUS members feel is the best response. I don't know if I like my odds of not getting kicked out of the class, the professor is a black female, but what the hell this is good entertainment.
For entertainment here are some of the responses from the class to the above question.
According to theaffluenzaproject.com, Affluenza is a harmful or unbalanced relationship with money or its pursuit and in the individual as the collective addictions, character flaws, psychological wounds, neurosis and behavioral disorders caused or exacerbated by the presence of or desire for wealth. So basically Affluenza is much like influenza with both causing a person to be miserable and ill. According to affluenza.org, millions of Americans report feeling exhausted, pressured, and hungry for more balanced lives. Americans today are filled with greed and want everything even if it is beyond their means. This hunger for power and possessions leads to extreme debt. Americans run up credit cards and loans and then can't afford them but life in America is simply to file bankruptcy. According to pbs.org, in 1996, more than 1 million Americans declared bankruptcy, three times as many as in 1986. Americans have more than 1 billion credit cards, and less than one-third of credit card holders pay off their balances each month. Consumerism is largely responsible for American's spending habits. We see commercials advertising all the latest and neatest things, for example, cars with automatic parking assistance, back-up cameras, the newest and latest computers and cell phones. A person can go out one day and buy a new cell phone that just came out and tomorrow you will see a commercial for a newer model with more gizmos and gadgets. Some Americans will never be satisfied with what they have when the friends or neighbors have more or what they consider better. People in this country act as though we have no economical crisis, environmental crisis, and that things are just a bed of roses. We have people who are starving, sick, and going without while we have telethons to raise billions and trillions of dollars to send to other countries. I guess people do it so someone will envy them and want to kiss the ground they walk on. If people have so much money to give away and send out of this country then why not keep it here and send it to St. Jude's or help fund a project to find cures.
**********************
According to Investopedia, Affluenza is "A social condition arising from the desire to be more wealthy, successful or to "keep up with the Joneses". Affluenza is symptomatic of a culture that holds up financial success as one of the highest achievements. People said to be affected by affluenza typically find that the very economic success they have been so vigorously chasing ends up leaving them feeling unfulfilled, and wishing for yet more wealth." The United States is definitely affected by Affluenza, because our culture believes that satisfaction will come with posessions and financial success. While consumerism,another name for Affluenza, is supposed to make people feel better and more self fufilled, more and more Americans are feeling exhausted and levels of depression are rising. " In 1998, over 1.4 million families declared personal bankruptcy, credit card debt reached new heights, and the personal savings rate fell to the lowest level since the Great Depression. Millions of Americans report feeling exhausted, pressured, and hungry for more balanced lives. They are seeking greater purpose and more free time to spend with family and friends." said Whitedwarf.org. While Americans only make up about 5% of the world's population, we exhaust more than 80% of the world's personal consumable goods. I think Americans do not have the right to use up so many resources when we're just one nation out of many, yet we use the most resources and create the most waste. Our consumerism lifestyles are out of control. For example, according to pbs.org, "since 1950, Americans alone have used more resources than everyone who ever lived before them. Each American individual uses up 20 tons of basic raw materials annually. Americans throw away 7 million cars a year, 2 million plastic bottles an hour and enough aluminum cans annually to make six thousand DC-10 airplanes." If we keep up these habits that we have now we are going to completely deplete all of Earth's natural resources and fill it with more waste than it can absorb. At the rates that this lifestyle is increasing, this will happen faster than we can come up with solutions for it. Americans are overworking themselves just so they can buy luxuries that they don't need or will ever barely use. Then once they get tired of this luxury they'll just toss it out to the garbage. They also don't have time for the things that people value as important, such as kids, family, friends, and hobbies. Couples talk for only about 12 minutes a day and parents only play with there kids on average of 40 minutes a week. The biggest example of consumerism is the automobile,during the 1920's when the automobile was first introducted, automobile registration soared from 8 million to 23 million. Cars were considered a necessity rather than a luxury beacause "mass production and competition made cars affordable even to some working class families," according to A People and A Nation. People left other means of transportation like street cars or bicycles for the popular car. Commercials also help consumerism by showing us the hotest, latest products that make people feel like they have to have it. Cars are also affected by this, people will trade in a perfectly good paid off car for a brand new car because they just weren't satisfied by the old one anymore. Consumerism is wrong and we must take actions to stop it before it grows so large that we deplete all of the Earth's resources or fill it up with so much waste we can't survive. People reached the highest percentage of what they call "very happy" in 1957 according to pbs.org, yet they consumed less than half of what we do now. If people want to see a better longer lasting Earth we must, "reduce our overall consumption of natural resources, shift our consumption toward green goods produced by sustainable businesses using clean, efficient technology, and promote efforts to stabalize global population so that everyone on earth can have access to adequate resources," says Whitedwarf.org. On a brighter note, millions have already began to downshift (which is they voluntarily reduced their work hours and spending to spend more time on what matters most, their families and interests). "Studies show that 87% of those downshifters are happy with the change," says Whitedwarf.org. Changing can be as easy as using, energy efficient products, consuming less and using less resources, not buying things you don't need or already have, etc. If American's just changed their attitudes and behavioral pattern, change could be easy for the world, if not we could be leading to a devasting extinction caused by ourselves.
*******************************
I don't think it is our "right" to consume. We do spend a lot of money on foreign aid. I think that is our responsibilty as one of the wealthiest nations in the world. Even though we are in the middle of a new depression, we are still better off than most of the nations in the world. What we view as hardship, other countries would still view as luxury. Very few of us know what true hardship is.
With this luxury of plenty and agencies that we can go to for help comes the responsiblity to not be an international bully. We also have the responsiblity to no squander what we do have. With the exception of this latest war, most other developed countries in the world experienced the same wars we did. They have lived through the same economic setbacks we have. Very few of them feel that they have the right to consume with no regard to their neighbors well being. In the end, what we do in another country does eventually affect us. Whether the cost in environmental, economic or human their is a price that must be paid in the end when we consume irresponsibly.
So the bottom line is, consumption in and of itself isn't bad. Being irresponsible and not caring what your consumption costs others in the world is bad. We need to be good neighbors and be responsible with what we have. Often times when you aren't responsible, you will lose what you have.
***********************
Affluenza was fueled by industrialism. As industrialism grew so did the consumers desire to obtain newer and better material possessions. Some of these possessions made life easier such as electricity, hot water and the automobile. For women however, new products such as vacuum cleaners , washing machines and commercial soap put greater demands on their time. (A People and a Nation, pg 689).This began the age of keeping up with the Joneses by trying to buy bigger and better things than their neighbor had. An example of this can be found in the text where it is stated that by 1929 2/3 of Americans lived in homes with electricity compared to 1/6 in 1912. (pg 683)
Advertising was a large part of consumerism. Advertisers for products that are used to clean your house, used guilt on women to sell their products.(A People and a Nation, pg 698). By 1929 more money was spent on advertising than on all types of formal education. Cosmetics manufacturers used movie stars and beauty tips to entice women to buy their products. Radio played a big part in advertising. Over 10 million Americans owned radios and spent $850 million on radio equipment a year by 1929. Programming focused mostly on entertainment because it drew larger audiences than educational programming making profits higher for advertisers.(pg684)
Affluenza has impacted more than families and societies. It has also effected the environment. With industrialism ever growing and advancing technology the earth has suffered. We as people have taken a great deal from it and have not given much back. In the article "Effects of Consumerism" it says that the producing, processing, and consuming of material goods requires the use of natural resources such as wood, fossil fuels, water, and ore. Then factories have to be built that when operating create toxic byproducts. These factories then produce the goods,such as cars, that in turn cause pollution.
I think that Americans are on the right track to stop the earth's destruction through car pooling, public transit, or riding bikes instead of driving. Some of us also recycle and try to buy energy efficient appliances. I also think that all people are responsible for the consequences of consumption, not just Americans. All countries should try to find ways in which to deal with their issues that have come from affluenza.
******************************
Is it our right to consume? Well, since I've never known consumption to be a right, I'd say no. Do we have the right to be happy? Of course. Of course, rights come with limitations. Your rights cannot infringe on someone else's. Everyone has the right to be happy, but they must find acceptable means. Yes, we've "fought Communism and Islamic extremists." Oh, and we've also screwed over the Middle East, sans Israel, through multiple steps. Does that add or take away from our rights to enjoy ourselves? Those points are irrelevant. Our moral compass can be argued, but that's an entirely different subject.
According to page 688 of our book for this class, we began building suburbs as they became more popular in the 1920s. We paved through woodland in order to make wide highways, and destroyed a lot of green. Affluenza is more of a barrier around fulfillment and happiness, because this condition allows us to obtain neither. As our module stated, the American Dream was painted in such a way that it made us want that much more, despite how miniscule "that much more" was. That lead to waste of things that were in fine condition. This is where whether or not we have a right to indulge comes in. Our indulgences affect the environment, which affects the rest of the world. We loves cars, use them (obviously), and fill them up with gas. Gas pollutes the air. The world needs air to survive. Unfortunately, the people who suffer from affluenza keep buying new cars, therefore using more gas. It's something that's too subjective to be argued objectively and explicitly.
On a short side-note, our "generosity" can easily be seen as a bad thing. We fought Communism in the Vietnam war. Awesome. My favorite part is when we abandoned South Vietnam after we got them into that mess, and they all got slaughtered. How generous of us. America has done so much bad, that the attempted reasoning of us enjoying ourselves should probably have been left out of the question.
Now, if the question is asking about affluenza in terms of us exhausting (as part of the wealthiest part of the world) 80% of the world's personal consumable goods, then we definitely owe it to the world to cut down. Nothing justifies nor warrants that much consumption. We don't need that much, and a ton of it goes to waste. Given our past actions, some would say that we should be part of the suffering percentage of the world. If more Americans opened their minds and peered into what affluenza really is, I think the consumption wold slow down. We're too myopic at the moment to see what all this is costing the rest of the world.
*********************
I very much believe it is our right as Americans to consume the products of our labor. This once great nation lead the world in almost every manufacturing category and we still feed a large portion of the world with food from our country. We spend billions a year on foreign aid with no true return on investment, especially since a large portion of the world hates or despises us. Big business and big money dragged us into both WWI and WWII for the sake of saving our allies from bankruptcy and destruction with the upside being economic and scientifc advances coming from the ashes of war. As U.S. citizens we deserve to consume the products that we use in our daily lives, whether it is oil based products, evil light bulbs which will soon be banned or even cheap Chinese junk. So what we make up 5% of the world and consume 80% of the worlds consumable goods? This is our right, other countries who are playing catch up will eventually being using way more consumable goods then the U.S. It is sad that a large amount of our manufacturing has gone overseas and that we rely heavily now on foreign countries for the products we made in our nation 20 or more years ago on our own soil but we still have the right to use those products however we want within reason and using common sense.
I don't think we have a responsibility to the world at all. Our government which has lost sight of its true reason for being, which is to be there for the people and by the people, not the other way around, seems to think they owe everything to foreign countries and companies instead of to its citizens. Not really sure what the true consequences of our consumption is anymore when it comes to the rest of the world, especially with the Associated Press and most major Media outlets being owned by the same organizations who are also behind some of the major players around the world in regards to corporations and governments, but things like Global Warming and Peak Oil to me are bogus and are used as scare tactics to take away more of our rights and to tax us in more interesting ways.
Marketing has played a big part over the past 50 years in making Americans want so much when it comes to goods. This brilliant marketing is also what has turned some of the biggest U.S. companies into the biggest players in the world like McDonalds or WalMart. Now the downside to where this marketing is heading is the idea that the future for us is Globalization. Globalization is bad for our country because it ties our entire economy into the rest of the worlds and we get to go down with everyone else if things start going south, an example being the European Union going broke or China/India overspending during a booming economy and the bursting of multiple bubbles in those economies.
Now Affluenza is a problem and to me is a different story from us having the right to consume whatever we want. Remember I said within reason and using common sense. Well spending way more on material goods and services than you can afford isn't within reason or using common sense. Our government has lost its mind and lost control due to Affluenza and so has a large portion of our population. 50 years ago a large portion of the population believed in having a savings or nest egg and it was quite common to pass on some wealth to your children when you passed away. This is very uncommon now in this day and age. People believe it is ok to carry large amounts of debt with no real way to pay that debt off in the near future. Same goes now for our government. Personally I don't think our government will ever be able to right things unless something drastic happens like hyperinflation, telling all the foreign countries and companies that own U.S. debt we are defaulting on said debt, or by revaluing the U.S. dollar to the extreme. We the people will pay for those losses in the end no matter what happens. Affluenza is a real problem for our country and the world but again is different from us having the right to consume goods.