Corporate Conspiracy against the American Consumer

For many years, Lewis Black has been one of my favorite comedians. I have watched his HBO special many times, to the point I can repeat verbatim. This Sunday morning I awoke and granted it wasn’t my first thought of the day, but after being awake for an hour and sipping on my second cup of coffee, I thought of our economy.

Our economy is based on credit and the success of economy is based on the success of the credit markets. That to me is very unnerving. How can you build an economy on credit? We virtually have an economy based on money that we borrow and don’t actually have. Scary. No wonder we have economic issues.

In Lewis Black’s HBO special he talked about water-the essence of life. As a child water was clean and we could drink from the spigot. Now our water that comes from the spigot is not very clean and many buy they water bottled. This example has nothing to do with water, but big business. Make the water dirty that comes from our spigots so we will be encouraged to BUY water from the grocery store. Water, like other natural things (love) should be free. But we will spend a hefty price for both.

Consumers spend what you earn. Well, the average salaries have not kept up with inflation so many people cannot get by on just what they earn. They need credit. We need credit. Let me reiterate, by keeping salaries below inflation rates, encourages people to buy on credit. Making water undrinkable that comes from you tap, encourages you to buy bottled water. In my crazy, rebellious mind, this is a corporate conspiracy against the American people. And thank you Lewis Black, I am not the only one to see this.

The question goes out for the American consumer. Are we satisfied being patsies in a corporate conspiracy? I like many would love to spend only what I earn. I do not want to depend on the disingenuous hand of the credit lender. But what are we going to do? If we don’t use this credit, this will reflect poorly on our credit score which would make it difficult for us to get more credit when we truly need it.