The Power of the People

I heard an interesting statement yesterday: The retail world has programmed us, trained us, to shop sales. We’re always hunting for the lowest price.

This is very thought-provoking, and I wonder if I agree. This is laying the blame for our current situation (the addiction to Wal-Mart and thus its ridiculous power to make or break producers as well as the addiction to All Things made in China and elsewhere that has resulted in continuous product recalls of cars, food, toys, and baby items) at the feet of Retail Business.

What about Economic Theory (resources i.e. money are scarce), Human Nature (yes, greed), and Marketing (the most powerful word in the English language being “Free!”). I don’t think we were “trained” necessarily…we were very willing participants. I do think the Wal-Mart phenomenon made it possible to find crap for less.

So here we are, my fellow Stoopid Americans. Our houses are full to the roofs with enormous amounts of crap. Some of us even make appearances on the tv show “Hoarders” because we’ve lost the use of entire rooms and dwellings. Storing our precious crap has become important. How many of us rent additional storage space, paying every month to hold onto old tv sets, computers, stereos, mattresses, broken LaZBoy recliners. Do we ever stop to weigh the cost of storage against the value of the items?

“Hoarders” isn’t the only show allowing us a glimpse of the cluttered lives of Americans. It seems most of the interior decorating shows involve the removal of crap first. What about the one in which the people carry all their crap to the front yard and make three piles? The grand finale is a yard sale. Yay, more money to buy more crap! Another show artfully combines the crap belonging to newlyweds who refuse to part with their individual crap. Then there’s the fashion make-over shows. First step: discard all the crap currently in the closet.

Have you peeked into the garages of neighbors, on the rare occasion that the door is open? Sometimes there’s a dusty old car, inoperable. There are always plastic bins, stacked, by those people still treading water, struggling to push back the tide and shove it in boxes.

We are literally drowning in all our crap. We can’t even properly use the items, as we can’t find them. Our mental capacities are overwhelmed.

When will we decide “enough”? Have we learned our lesson? How many of us must die driving cheap cars with parts that fail, eating cheap, genetically-modified, factory-processed food that weakens us, makes us stoopider, and inhibits the body’s natural ability to fight infection and disease and regenerate. How many children sacrificed on the altar of Everyday Low Prices? And what about the lost potential of those young Americans, hell, America in general, because of all those individuals who eat Cheetoz instead of an apple, only exercise as the walk from house to car, or are sick and sad, overwhelmed by their lives. No matter, there’s a pill for everything. You don’t have to change the original behavior that caused the problem – take the magic pills. Yes, the ones that cause all the other side effects.

Is this the Greatest Nation on Earth? We have prospered ourselves right into stoopid oblivion. And I don’t think we can blame Business. It was good, old-fashioned Greed. Our consumer behavior driven by greed and faulty decision-making has resulted in “training” Business to find ways to cut costs and quality and deliver the goods at the price we demand. We have forced them to find raw materials in China and assemble them in Mexico. Business does what we tell it to do…and we say it with our money.

I would like to persuade my friends to do two things.

1. Spend some time with your crap this weekend. Analyze why you bought it, what did it mean to you, was it used and enjoyed, what is its role now. If there is no room or purpose for it in your life, donate it. Hold the thoughts and feelings close in your heart to remember the next time you’re at the store considering a purchase. Really question the lust for more instead of better.

2. Eat organic. Ignore the wily marketer’s commercial that high fructose corn syrup is really good for you! Target stores are leading the charge on affordable organic. You don’t have to spend three times as much to shop at specialized health food stores. Send the message that you don’t want to eat crap anymore, by choosing to spend just a little extra to be healthier. (Maybe then the 25 different arrangements of Ho-Hos will disappear to make room for more organic offerings.) Let’s change the current business dynamic. Do you really want to EAT the cheapest crap? We deserve better. Let’s demand it. And for God’s sake, don’t expect the government to make these smart choices for you and force business to do unprofitable things…government involvement leads to more corruption, confusion, wasted resources.

Let the free market work to address this problem. I see all sorts of signs that it already is beginning. Business is feeling the hit in sales and responding. McDonald’s serves oatmeal now. Yes, really. Longtime cereal manufacturers are creating new lines under new DBA’s. (Kellogg is really behind Kashi, and no, it’s not organic.) My milk carton now says: “Our farmers pledge NOT to use artificial growth hormones.” Thank you. I think I’ll show my appreciation by buying you. You farmers will succeed; the others will go out of business.

All the brilliant ideas we will have in the future, all the discoveries, humanitarian and business successes, the defeat of evils, the solving of problems – all this begins with what we choose to eat and feed our children right now. Us. Not the government idiots and shysters.