Free Republic

October 12, 2008 Losing my religion in the aisles of the new cathedral of consumerism Europe’s biggest city-centre mall is about to open in London – just as India Knight begins to break faith with shopping A shopper in London's Bond Street taking advantage of the sales I am standing on a ledge gazing down at the innards of the new Westfield shopping centre in west London. Outside, in the real world, Iceland is suddenly poorer than Africa. Inside, they are preparing for the ultimate shopping experience. Below the undulating glass roof the site is almost unimaginably enormous – the...

If you believe big media, the economy is in trouble. If you worry about job layoffs and your inability to pay bills, you may be thinking about voting for Democrats this fall, which is the point of the negative media coverage. Every four years when a Republican is president, big media carry stories about economic gloom and doom. But is it true? It depends on the standard you use. Last week, The Washington Post carried a story that is a metaphor for what ails us. It was about a Maryland couple whose mortgage lender took back what remained of a...

According to American media reports (and what could be more reliable?) the hottest gift items for pre-school children in this year's Christmas buying season are: cellphones, laptops, digital cameras, and MP3 players. A New York Times item directs us to the “hottest toys list” at Amazon.com, and such products as the Easy Link Internet Launch Pad from Fisher-Price; and an exercise bike for toddlers, connected to a video game. The theme of, “get the kid staring at a screen,” runs right through the chart, and since the screens are interactive, let me take this opportunity to warn medical professionals to...

November 23, 2007 — Adbusters, the Canadian culture jamming magazine largely responsible for propagating Buy Nothing Day, has once again been rejected in its attempt to buy advertising on MTV in promotion of the anti-consumerist holiday. MTV's Advertising Standards representative, Elisa J. Billis, didn't deny that the rejection was based soley on the message of the ad, simply saying that "the spot goes further than we are willing to accept on our channels." The ad features a burping animated pig and seeks to illustrate the divide in the amount of waste produced by the richest and poorest countries in the...

Sunday Business Post, Global Economics The inexorable fall of the dollar has exposed the inconsistency at the heart of Ireland’s economic policy. If you are thinking about your open-walleted, pre-Christmas assault on Bloomingdales and Saks, the news this week from the international currency markets will lighten your mood. If, on the other hand, you are worried about how you will pay for the pre-Christmas New York shopping trip, then the news will strike a note of caution. The dollar has fallen to close to its lowest level ever against the euro. Today, one euro can buy you close to $1.40,making...

Church "hopping" is the ultimate "all about me" experience. I'm not talking about church "shopping" - say, moving into a new community, or deciding to start attending church altogether, and then visiting churches until becoming a member of one as soon as reasonably possible. And I'm not talking about leaving one's church after finding un-addressed scandal in a church's leadership, for instance, or when a person's conscience becomes persuaded that something foundational to the belief system of that church is very wrong. I'm talking about the growing tendency in America's evangelical churches for folks who decide, after they have officially...

LONDON (Reuters Life) - Beware the Affluenza Virus. An epidemic of mindless consumerism is sweeping the world with the compulsive pursuit of money and possessions making people richer but sadder. That is the stark warning issued by best-selling British psychologist Oliver James after a "mind tour" of seven countries chronicling how depression envelopes the affluent...

Joe Skarimbas was just learning to read when he decided he was ready to join the digital age. "When he went to first grade he said, 'When am I going to get a cell phone?'" said Joe's mother, Tara Skarimbas. The Leonia family decided to hold off on getting young Joe a phone until he turns 10 and starts walking home from school alone. But his mother understands the temptation to get her son, who turns 8 this month, a cell phone as soon as possible. "Just for safety purposes," she said, glancing toward the new Disney Mobile kiosk during...

A PROFIT WITH HONOR Walk into any Gap clothing store this holiday season and expect to see red T-shirts, red hats and red bracelets. Of course decorating with red is nothing unusual this time of year, but the merchandise is meant to remind customers of something not often associated with the holidays: the global AIDS epidemic. Gap is one of a number of companies this year who are tapping into consumers' growing desire to do good deeds with their purchasing dollars. Other retailers selling products to benefit humanitarian causes include Bath & Body Works, a division of Limited Brands Inc.,...

Zero-sum positional conflict is avoidable in a liberal market society, argues Will WilkinsonHL Mencken once quipped that, ‘a wealthy man is one who earns $100 a year more than his wife’s sister’s husband.’ Writing last April on the definition of poverty in The New Yorker, journalist John Cassidy takes the logic of Mencken’s satire of low-grade ressentiment fully seriously and plumps for its liberal application to public policy. Cassidy argues that it is indeed a hardship to make less than your wife’s sister’s husband—or your co-worker, your next door neighbour, or anyone within the same national boundaries—and proposes that for...

Ehudgins@atlassociety.org It's a typical 3-H Washington, D.C. summer: hazy, hot and humid. And with small variations, the rest of the country sweats through this same season. But I sit typing in cool comfort, looking out a window into the park at the statue of an admiral who might want to yield his pedestal for a likeness of Willis Haviland Carrier. Who was Carrier and why does he deserve our esteem? He's the American who invented and commercialized the modern air conditioner. Carrier was born in 1876 and grew on the cold shores of Lake Erie in Upstate New York. He...

Black Friday Sales Flat as Holiday Shopping Season Begins Sales Total $8.0 Billion For The Season's First Major Shopping Day, Down a Slight 0.9 Percent From a Very Strong 2004 CHICAGO – November 26, 2005 – ShopperTrak RCT Corporation's National Retail Sales Estimate (NRSE) today reported that the 2005 holiday retail season got off to a relatively flat start as compared to 2004 as the season's first major shopping day, Black Friday, fell a very slight 0.9 percent. With heavy discounting by non-mall retailers combined with the extended shopping season in 2005, consumers may not feel the pressure to shop...

Early morning shoppers at Beaumont’s Wal-Mart say they were pepper sprayed by an off-duty police officer working security as a large crowd gathered in the electronics department of the store. “There were some people trying to break thru the crowds because they were throwing up, and couldn`t breathe,” said one shopper, Andrenette Davis, “It was pretty bad.” The incident took place on what is often called “Black Friday,” a day retailers open their doors early to hundreds, sometimes thousands, looking for early holiday bargains. Numerous customers inside the store at the time tell KBTV the crowd gathered in the electronics...

To many observers, clutter reflects the mind-set of the modern household - overburdened, disorganized and compulsive. To others, clutter is a broader symbol of a ravenous culture dependent on easy credit, piling up debt and consuming a lion's share of the world's resources without considering the consequences. "People's homes are a reflection of their lives," says Los Angeles psychologist and organizational consultant Peter Walsh. "It is no accident that people have a huge weight problem in this country, and clutter is the same thing. Homes are an orgy of consumption." The obesity analogy isn't a joke. While personal spending drives...

She's young, gifted and ahead of you at the till ___ Retailers are remodelling themselves to tempt a new breed of educated, affluent women. Now politicians dream of tapping their voting power. Amelia Hill and Anushka Asthana report It is difficult to schedule an interview with Joanna Public these days - she simply doesn't have the time. Busy enjoying her youth, advancing her career and spending her large disposable income, she represents the most influential sector in modern British society. Once it was middle-aged Joe Public senior who wielded the power, followed by his fresh-faced son, Joe Public junior. Now...

LONDON (Reuters) - Sony, the world's largest consumer-electronics group, is having trouble meeting soaring demand for flat televisions as its assembly lines did not gear up quickly enough, a senior official said on Friday. "We are having trouble meeting demand in flat TVs," Chris Beering, president of Sony Europe, told Reuters in an interview, saying the assembly lines were working flat out. "I do not think there is overcapacity in assembly." There was no problem in the supply of the panels. The bottlenecks at the Japanese firm's own plants come at an awkward time ahead of the Christmas shopping season,...

Celebrate Consume Wisely Day year round The day after Thanksgiving is Buy Nothing Day, a day, according to Adbusters, to "not participate in the doomsday economy, the marketing mind-games, and the frantic consumer-binge that's become our culture." For those who choose to celebrate this holiday, we ask that you do so properly. At midnight on Nov. 26, you must leave your house or apartment, because shelter is a commodity and this is Buy Nothing Day. If you don't want to walk around naked we suggest that you make your own clothes out of materials found for free in nature like...

Consumerism: A Subtle Corroder of Virtue Psychologist Tells How Christians Can Resist Materialism UNIONTOWN, Ohio, AUG. 30, 2004 (Zenit) - Jesus Christ spoke out against greed more than any other vice. But despite those warnings, Christians are still incredibly susceptible to the allure of a materialistic lifestyle, says a Catholic psychologist. Dr. Ray Guarendi, author, radio host and father of 10, told us how Christians in the West are plagued by consumerism and what damage greed can do to Christian marriages, families and individuals. Q: Those in a free society are awash in choice in virtually all aspects of life:...

Wal-Mart comes to Manitoba's Bible Belt It appears that Winklerites will be smiling all the way to the check-out. >by Will Braun July 6, 2004 Despite Wal-Mart's reputation as a bad boy of the business world, 20 million shoppers a day choose savings over scruples. With the uber-retailer about to set up shop in the Manitoba Bible Belt town where I grew up, I wanted to know whether the Mennonites of Winkler — who make up roughly 85 per cent of the town's 8000 inhabitants —are any less blinded by the bargains than the average shopper. For centuries, we Mennonites...

An excerpt from the Gospel according to St. Luke, revised and updated for the 21st century: "And there were in the same country shepherds, abiding in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, 'Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy.' "Wal-Mart is having a sale on DVD players. Just $29 apiece. And 5 megapixel digital cameras are also available for $344 dollars...

This post by Waylon has to do with this story: http://www.komotv.com/news/story_m.asp?ID=28700 Does This T-Shirt Send The Right Message? This article was published on FR, and also SPARC. I gave up trying to find the posted article here. As the result of being bombarded by emails, calls, and faxes by both sites, Bon-Macy's pulled the t-shirts off the shelves. Waylon spoke with a rep from the manufacturer of the shirts, David and Goliath. I got permission from Waylon before I posted this, and I think that many of you will find this company's attitude interesting and maybe a little disturbing... You...

For decades, the United States was the world's only significant mass market, offering businesses more than enough consumers to buy up ever greater volumes of their merchandise and services. To gain access to these consumers, companies had to operate inside the country. They could do so profitably because they benefited from economies of scale, meaning that each item off an assembly line was less expensive to produce than the one before. The wealth generated, in profits and wages, has made the United States far and away the world's most powerful country for nearly a century. No one else had ever...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Everything is justified by `slavish devotion' to the consumer At the beginning of the 20th century, the most transformational enterprise in the world, Ford Motor Co., dramatically raised wages for its assembly-line workers and reduced their work week. Henry Ford wanted his employees to be able to afford a Model T, and have the leisure time to enjoy it. At the dawn of the 21st century, the transformational enterprise of our times, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., pays most of its U.S. employees poverty-level wages, skimps on worker and retiree benefits and is...

<p>The growing appeal of "dollar" stores has begun to trouble even the most traditional retailers — enough that some are testing their own "dollar" sections.</p> <p>Department and specialty store sales are down through June vs. last year, major supermarket growth is under 1%, and even mighty Wal-Mart is up just 2.9%. But Family Dollar chain sales are up 3.9%, and Dollar General's are up 4.2%.</p>

<p>UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- A Dumpster is supposed to be a colossal wastebasket. And a wastebasket is supposed to be for, well, waste.</p> <p>But a few years back, Al Matyasovsky -- his Penn State University job includes tracking the trash the school coughs out -- peered over the top of a dormitory Dumpster.</p>

My son found this flash file after staying up all night- drinking Dew and eating Doritos...it was hysterical...if you are into Japanese Game Shows and incomprehensible lyrics somehow relating to American consumerism, fruit and psycho dogs(?) Click source url to start flash file.

Juvenile Nation By Paul Valentine March 16, 2003 AMAJOR outcome of the culture wars of the last 50 years can be summarized in a single phrase: the juvenilization of America. Its impact, fashioned by Madison Avenue, driven by the TV networks, crowned by Hollywood and bought by our social systems from education to religion to the courts, is so pervasive that the good that came out of those same culture wars is now substantively diminished. The tendency of American adults to revert to or remain in essentially juvenile behavior has grown like spawn in a petri dish of narcissism, instant...

HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: The News Bizarre Dec. 12, 2002, 2:53PM Santa Claus gets icy reception in Austria Associated Press Associated Press Margit Hammerl and Horst Strauss, members of the Pro-Christkind (Pro-Christ Child) Society, pose in front of a nativity scene at a Vienna Christmas market with Pro-Christkind stickers on their jackets. VIENNA, Austria -- Ho, ho, ho? No, no, no! Santa Claus is coming to town -- and many Austrians wish he'd just stay home. The jolly old elf is getting an icy reception in this alpine country that gave the world "Silent Night" and clings to beloved Christmas...

"Overview: Students will learn about how the world's resources are distributed among the world's people. Teachers might want to do this activity before viewing the video. "Materials: TV/VCR, popcorn with butter and salt, plain popcorn, some half-burned kernels, unpopped popcorn, soda pop, iced tea (decaffeinated recommended), water, cups and napkins. A video of people eating (Babette's Feast? Like Water for Chocolate?) "The gap between rich and poor Americans is now the widest of any industrial nation. "One-fifth of the world's population lives in dire poverty, slowly dying of hunger and disease. Millions of others desperately need more material goods. Yet,...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Consumer Reports, the magazine that uncovers safety problems in everything from appliances to beauty products, says it's guilty of giving consumers a potentially dangerous product. The magazine's publisher, Consumers Union, is recalling 15,000 glove compartment organizers sent as an incentive to new subscribers. The kits contain a flashlight that can overheat and melt the case and a tire pressure gauge that gives inaccurate readings, which could lead people to improperly inflate their tires. The kits were imported from China and also contained a pocketknife, pen and paper. The company did not test the kits until readers began...