2 posts tagged “capitalism”
God, the news is so depressing lately. I am tempted to just tune out and cocoon myself in books and DVDs, banish news sites from my "Favorites" menu:...rising gas prices, falling home prices, vanishing sea turtles, banks doing belly flops, terrorism, disease, war...where does it all end?
And it's easy to say that "greed" is the cause of all this (and that's the consensus among most journalists, it seems) but it's so much more complicated than that: was it wrong of people with bad credit to want to own their own homes? Was it wrong to think that they could pay those enormous mortgages some day in a vague future? Maybe they made poor financial choices, but these were working people buying their first home. That doesn't seem like greed to me. I don't know: it's an urge I only half sympathize with (buying a home), but it's not like these were 2nd or 3rd homes in Cabo or Hawaii.
I guess big US companies got greedy, but that's kind of how our system works, isn't it. I mean, when you have shareholders demanding not just that you make a profit, but that your profit increase each year, there are bound to be decisions made which are short-sighted and self-serving.
Journalists use phrases like "Changing times" and "Hard times" and I suppose that things are changing and have changed. Gas will never be cheap again. That in and of itself might change North America, but in Europe, gas has been expensive for a long time, very expensive. They managed to survive. And even thrive. True, we have more land and population density is less, but that is easily altered over a couple of generations if living and driving in rural America and Canada just gets too expensive. Anyway, why can't "rural" just mean something different than living 100 miles from your nearest neighbor? Anyway, there are people who live in rural Europe, too, who drive cars. They just drive less.
It will change "car culture" hopefully, something I've never really "gotten." Remember when people would drive beater cars, old crappy rust buckets, because they couldn't afford anything else? Even people who could afford something else often did that. Now we have this idea that your car is some of extension of yourself, that it reflects who you are, which is just stupid. If you have a shitty old car that costs $2,500 this means somehow that you "failed" in your life. That is such an idiotic way of looking at it, but surprisingly common.
This "wealthy European" on some dumb TV show I was breezing past the other night was talking about his $500,000 car and I was reminded of that adage: "That's $500,000 that guy doesn't have."
The same goes for the phone. Or the apartment. Or the brand of shoes you wear.
I think that celebrity culture is so apparent and hard to escape from that we all secretly try to live like we're celebrities. We all want to live like the wealthy, whether or not we have money, because everything around us tells us that wealthy people are somehow better people: they have better hair, they have more fun when they go out, they have better friends, they travel to better places, they drive better cars, etc. So we buy things we can't afford, we go into debt for the things that our peasly little salaries won't allow.
But the fact of the matter is that only a tiny fraction of our population can live like wealthy celebrities. The rest of us have to slog through with our beater cars, crappy old mobile phones, $3,500 second-hand sedans, long hours at work...the more things change...
I guess we have to try and rebel against the system en masse: companies are always going to want us to spend more money than we can afford: they make billions off of our very debt. All we can do is tune out the entreaties, re-establish that line between need and want which has become blurred.
Hopefully, this mess won't all just clear up in the next 18 months and everyone will go back to where they were...
Professional marketers are sure getting creative!! Strapped airlines who are struggling to survive are coming up with some interesting ways to cut costs and increase revenue (don't even get me started on these crazy US airline mergers which seem self-serving and a real bane for customers). I realize airlines are in it to make money so I can understand the need to survive at any cost. But do they really believe their customers are just downright stupid?
Air Canada has started a new "travel assistance" program. What this means is that for a fee (they are vague about it but say "for the cost of a single cab ride to the airport") when I book my flight, I can choose their optional travel assistance package which will "protect" me in case of delay, cancellation by giving me "priority" in rebooking my flight, getting into a hotel room if necessary, or rerouting my flight on another airline.
So let me get this straight: if I'm flying on Air Canada and Air Canada has a delay: I can PAY THEM to sort out the problem for me? If they overbook a flight and bump me? They will reroute me or rebook me IF I PAY THEM. If one of their planes has a malfunction because of poor servicing and they have to cancel my flight, they will put me in a hotel room overnight IF I PAY THEM. I can see how that's gonna work in the event of a major delay: all the customers who paid Air Canada for this ridiculous travel assistance policy will be helped while everyone else will just be stuck? Huh?
I don't have a problem with Air Canada (though big Canadian companies generally are greedy bastards and very short-sighted: terrible customer service, WAY more expensive than in the US, and no concept of cultivating "long term customers," wanting their money now now now). Air Canada is usually better than most US airlines and their international flights are way better than United, Continental or American (I HATE Northwest). It's true that they are more expensive because there is less competition and when I fly out west, it's usually cheaper to fly on a US airline (unless Air Canada is running a special). But that's fine. I use airmiles and get lots of perks for it. And the better service generally makes up for it being a bit more expensive.
But this really bugs me: the program, the fact that it's so blatantly targeted at people who don't have a CLUE. Imagine buying an extra insurance policy with Ford so that if your Ford breaks down because of a design flaw, the will fix it for free! I'm not talking about a warranty but an actual extra policy you pay for which means they will simply back up their own product if their own product fails.
Crazy crazy crazy. What's next, dear marketers?
