News & Articles
Read brief parts of articles and news! Click on the links embedded on the titles of the articles to finish reading them! Enjoy reading and getting informed!
Read brief parts of articles and news! Click on the links embedded on the titles of the articles to finish reading them! Enjoy reading and getting informed!
What's behind American consumerism? As Americans increasingly spend more than they earn, psychological research is providing clues as to why.
(American Psychological Association)
"One bright spot in the midst of the country's economic downturn may be a long-overdue focus on reining in our spending. Since 1982, Americans' personal savings rate has dropped from 11 percent to below zero, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, and personal bankruptcy
Filings have reached record highs. As the debt load has risen, psychologists have increasingly been called on to explain why Americans overspend. In the last six months alone, APA's Media Referral Service fielded more than 60 requests from media organizations looking to talk to a psychologist about money--more than any other subject during the same time.
Researchers say that new ways of advertising, paired with cultural shifts toward consumerism, seem to be driving the trend.
"Any time the urge strikes, we now have the capability to act on it impulsively, and that creates a much greater challenge for us than was ever the case before," says psychologist Stuart Vyse, PhD, author of "Going Broke: Why Americans Can't Hold On To Their Money" (Oxford University Press, 2008). "It's only natural that we are having trouble with debt.""
For These Bargains We Are About To Receive, Can We Be Truly Thankful?
(NPR)
"Consumerism is here to stay, and so is Black Friday, and so is shopping, and that's something we all come to terms with in our own way. (Or, of course, do not come to terms with but continue to gripe about. That is also traditional.) But when the day of shopping sinks its greedy teeth into Turkey Day — or, as those in the know understand it should more properly be called, Gravy Day — that's a problem. When it drags retail employees from a day of rest for no better reason than to get a jump on the sales traffic that could just as easily be gobbled on Friday, that's a shame."
(NPR)
"Consumerism is here to stay, and so is Black Friday, and so is shopping, and that's something we all come to terms with in our own way. (Or, of course, do not come to terms with but continue to gripe about. That is also traditional.) But when the day of shopping sinks its greedy teeth into Turkey Day — or, as those in the know understand it should more properly be called, Gravy Day — that's a problem. When it drags retail employees from a day of rest for no better reason than to get a jump on the sales traffic that could just as easily be gobbled on Friday, that's a shame."
Chinese Teen Sells Kidney For iPad And iPhone
(NPR)
"An iPhone and iPad were worth more to a Chinese teenager than his kidney, according to a report Friday from China's Xinhua news agency. Now five people in southern China face charges of illegal organ trading.
The 17-year-old, surnamed Wang, received about $3,500 for his kidney, which was removed and delivered to a recipient last April. Wang's mother grew suspicious when her son returned home with the costly new gadgets, and his confession soon followed. Xinhua says the teen is now suffering from "renal insufficiency" — a decreased level of kidney function — and that his condition is deteriorating."
As Consumerism Spreads, Earth Suffers, Study Says
(National Geographic)
"Approximately 1.7 billion people worldwide now belong to the "consumer class"—the group of people characterized by diets of highly processed food, desire for bigger houses, more and bigger cars, higher levels of debt, and lifestyles devoted to the accumulation of non-essential goods.
Today nearly half of global consumers reside in developing countries, including 240 million in China and 120 million in India—markets with the most potential for expansion.
"Rising consumption has helped meet basic needs and create jobs," Christopher Flavin, president of Worldwatch Institute said in a statement to the press. "But as we enter a new century, this unprecedented consumer appetite is undermining the natural systems we all depend on, and making it even harder for the world's poor to meet their basic needs."
The report addresses the devastating toll on the Earth's water supplies, natural resources, and ecosystems exacted by a plethora of disposable cameras, plastic garbage bags, and other cheaply made goods with built in product-obsolescence, and cheaply made manufactured goods that lead to a "throw away" mentality."
The Brief, Tragic Reign of Consumerism—and the Birth of a Happy Alternative
(Common Dreams.org)
"You and I consume; we are consumers. The global economy is set up to enable us to do what we innately want to do—buy, use, discard, and buy some more. If we do our job well, the economy thrives; if for some reason we fail at our task, the economy falters. The model of economic existence just described is reinforced in the business pages of every newspaper, and in the daily reportage of nearly every broadcast and web-based financial news service, and it has a familiar name: consumerism.
Consumerism also has a history, but not a long one. True, humans—like all other animals—are consumers in the most basic sense, in that we must eat to live. Further, we have been making weapons, ornaments, clothing, utensils, toys, and musical instruments for thousands of years, and commerce has likewise been with us for untold millennia.
What’s new is the project of organizing an entire society around the necessity for ever-increasing rates of personal consumption"
(Common Dreams.org)
"You and I consume; we are consumers. The global economy is set up to enable us to do what we innately want to do—buy, use, discard, and buy some more. If we do our job well, the economy thrives; if for some reason we fail at our task, the economy falters. The model of economic existence just described is reinforced in the business pages of every newspaper, and in the daily reportage of nearly every broadcast and web-based financial news service, and it has a familiar name: consumerism.
Consumerism also has a history, but not a long one. True, humans—like all other animals—are consumers in the most basic sense, in that we must eat to live. Further, we have been making weapons, ornaments, clothing, utensils, toys, and musical instruments for thousands of years, and commerce has likewise been with us for untold millennia.
What’s new is the project of organizing an entire society around the necessity for ever-increasing rates of personal consumption"
Effects of Consumerism
(Book: Global Problem and the Culture of Capitalism by Richard Robbins)
"Our consumption of goods obviously is a function of our culture. Only by producing and selling things and services does capitalism in its present form work, and the more that is produced and the more that is purchased the more we have progress and prosperity. The single most important measure of economic growth is, after all, the gross national product (GNP), the sum total of goods and services produced by a given society in a given year. It is a measure of the success of a consumer society, obviously, to consume.
However, the production, processing, and consumption, of commodities requires the extraction and use of natural resources (wood, ore, fossil fuels, and water); it requires the creation of factories and factory complexes whose operation creates toxic byproducts, while the use of commodities themselves (e.g. automobiles) creates pollutants and waste. Yet of the three factors environmentalists often point to as responsible for environmental pollution — population, technology, and consumption — consumption seems to get the least attention. One reason, no doubt, is that it may be the most difficult to change; our consumption patterns are so much a part of our lives that to change them would require a massive cultural overhaul, not to mention severe economic dislocation. A drop in demand for products, as economists note, brings on economic recession or even depression, along with massive unemployment."
(Book: Global Problem and the Culture of Capitalism by Richard Robbins)
"Our consumption of goods obviously is a function of our culture. Only by producing and selling things and services does capitalism in its present form work, and the more that is produced and the more that is purchased the more we have progress and prosperity. The single most important measure of economic growth is, after all, the gross national product (GNP), the sum total of goods and services produced by a given society in a given year. It is a measure of the success of a consumer society, obviously, to consume.
However, the production, processing, and consumption, of commodities requires the extraction and use of natural resources (wood, ore, fossil fuels, and water); it requires the creation of factories and factory complexes whose operation creates toxic byproducts, while the use of commodities themselves (e.g. automobiles) creates pollutants and waste. Yet of the three factors environmentalists often point to as responsible for environmental pollution — population, technology, and consumption — consumption seems to get the least attention. One reason, no doubt, is that it may be the most difficult to change; our consumption patterns are so much a part of our lives that to change them would require a massive cultural overhaul, not to mention severe economic dislocation. A drop in demand for products, as economists note, brings on economic recession or even depression, along with massive unemployment."
Characteristics of a Consumer Society
"A consumer society has the following characteristics (drawn from McGregor, 2001). Identities are built largely out of things because things have meaning. People measure their lives by money and ownership of things. People are convinced that to consume is the surest route to personal happiness, social status, and national success. Advertising, packaging, and marketing create illusory needs that are deemed real because the “economic” machine has made people feel inferior and inadequate. To keep the economic machine moving, people have to be dissatisfied with what they have, hence, with whom they are. Consequently, the meaning of one’s life is
located in acquisition, ownership, and consumption.
Consumerism has caused a visible and dramatic increase in human kind’s obsession with possessions and in the identification of one’s person with what one owns. The trend has significantly grown over the last century and with it the violence it entails (Sols, 2002). Witness the killing of youth by youth for brand name running shoes or jackets. Witness the violence present in advertisements, video games, music, videos, and children’s programming on television. Witness the not so silent violence in the home due to dual income and single parents working to meet increasing costs of living. Witness the latch key kids, underfunded day care, and escalating violence in schools. These are symptoms of violence in a society structured around consumerism. Carter (1999) agrees and advances the idea that the root causes of youth violence can be partially blamed on the focus society places on consumerism "