Our Ailing Economy - The Natural Order of Things?

Whose idea was it that it is our responsibility to keep businesses in business? When did it become one step away from mandatory that we buy a new car every two years? Why is it that most of us buy a home that we can barely afford? Who benefits from the use of a credit card, we, the consumers, or the bank owners? These rhetorical questions have glaring answers, answers that should tell us that something is dreadfully wrong with our economic system, and with our society.

As a kid growing up in the 60s, I watched TV, as most American kids did. I remember many of the ads, cigarettes, toys, cars, over the counter remedies, foods, household goods and supplies, and many other items relating to everyday life in America. For the most part, the ads showed us what was available, what it did, and where we could get it. At that time, there were laws against “False advertising”. To my recollection, the only companies who were playing dirty pool were the cigarette companies, directing their ads at young, impressionable teenagers.

Fast forward to the late 80s, no smoking on TV, but false advertising in just about every ad that flashed across your 35 inch cathode ray picture tube, and it’s been downhill ever since. In my estimation, no less than 60% of what you see in between your favorite shows is from health care, pharmaceutical companies, and other businesses directly related. Some of the products include: Pain killers, antacids, cold/flu remedies, magic weight loss pills, hair growth pills, anti-oxidant pills, and these are just the over the counter drugs. We now watch thirty and sixty second skits that tell us it’s normal to have headaches, backaches, cholesterol, diabetes, GI conditions, sleep disorders, ED by the time we’re 35, and, just about the silliest of them all, restless leg syndrome.

We’re told, not just in ads, but in “documentaries” and movies, that if we’d eaten certain foods in our lifetime, we are likely to get cancer, if we don’t eat certain foods, we are likely to get cancer, if we don’t take enough of a certain vitamin, or enough of the latest miracle preventative, we’re likely to get cancer. If we eat this, we’ll have high cholesterol, if we eat that, diabetes, etc. We’re led to believe that we must regulate our blood sugar from one minute to the next, or something dreadful will happen to us. There are prescription drugs, advertised directly to us, what could be the reason for that? How many of you have forgotten that the body is designed to balance itself, that food is to nourish our body, not destroy it, and as long as we eat balanced meals, and we eat a variety of foods, we will be fine.

You get a cold, your body will heal itself. It’s not normal to get headaches, there is no cholesterol gene, and there is no fat gene. There are no shortcuts to being slim and healthy, and there is certainly no magic pill that will replace good eating habits and exercise. If you eat Chips Ahoy, Doritos, drink buckets of Coke, and the couch is your favorite place to be, you’re gonna have problems. If you eat the same 5 meals week after week for years and years, you’re gonna have problems. If you cook all your food to death, that’s right - problems. You don’t get sick, you don’t come down with this condition or that condition because you have a lack of drugs in your body, this stuff happens because you do not eat properly, you are afraid to get up off your couch, and you believe all the nonsense that you see on your TV. Think about that before you read on.

Well, folks, the health care and pharmaceuticals are not the only ones playing dirty. Insurance companies, banks, cell phone companies, the auto industry, fast food chains, most retailers, just about every business that we can think of has their ownership and upper management pulling every trick in the book and then some, to literally steal your hard earned money. Certain types of insurance have been made mandatory by the government, with more on the way, how’s that for advertising? Approximately two months ago, I heard a story on one of the TV News networks, about a doctor somewhere in Oregon, who was offering free services.

Well, the story said that the government stepped in and said that it was against the law to do such a thing. On the same network, about a week ago, there was a report about the government telling farmers that they could not grow more than a certain amount of wheat - on their own property - they did this by hiding behind some law regarding interstate commerce. Also on the same network, I saw a report about how the elite was very upset and angered by President Obama’s proposal that they not be allowed to hide their money in foreign banks. This particular network wholeheartedly agreed that the president’s proposal was a terrible thing. This author applauds our president, should this bill pass.

Well, it’s becoming common knowledge that most large corporations will stop at nothing to get our money - lie, cheat, steal, exploit workers in any way possible, and, now that it may become illegal for them to hide their wealth in offshore bank accounts, they are up in arms. It’s not enough that they can afford high powered lawyers who know how to hide money, and get out of paying their fair share of taxes. And please, we’re not talking dollar amounts here, we’re talking percentages - if I’m required to pay 40% of my earnings to the IRS, and to the government in the form of hidden taxes, then the same should apply to the wealthy.

We need to find ways to combat these atrocities. Some of the things that I do include, boycotting anything possible that is produced or offered by large corporations, buy from the small businessman whenever possible. I only use my credit card if I can pay the balance as soon as I get the bill. When I buy a new car, I keep it for at least five years, no matter how pushy and obnoxious the salesman is. I barter whenever possible - and you want to see something that the government hates, just wait and see what happens if there ever comes a time when barter is practiced by many - you’ll see just how fast, and how violently they find ways to ban it.