Save Time!
Save Money!
Save Hair!
Save Face!
Save! Save! Save!
It seems, sometimes, that the name of the game is to "save." To horde. To keep from giving up too much. It's funny how capitalism, and other systems, have turned that into people giving up so much.
Think about it? Are you really saving 20% on that pair of jeans when you had no intention of buying them in the first place? And how is saving that 5 bucks, really going to help you down the road? Especially when you just turn around and plunk it down for a mucha-mocha latte. Is this how you are saving for your retirement? Pocket change?
Then you have time. It seems that many things that are developed, advanced, or invented are aimed as saving us time. Streamlining processes, making more efficient machines, machines that can operate themselves. Easy buttons. Of course, while it saves time, and money, for some, it gives more time and worries to the poor sap who used to do the job with his hands.
Meanwhile, society has an ever growing addiction to all that is cyber and techie. Wifi/gps/pushbuttontalk/cellphone/computers. Where some of this may have been developed to make business more efficient, it has had the effect of taking time as well. When 15 years ago you could go out and have dinner and talk with those who accompanied you. Now it's "Oh I've gotta take this, I'll be right back...." and then the check comes. Many become enslaved by the tech. Meanwhile, time with friends and family is lost. The boundary between being at-work and at-home ever blurry.
It seems society is obsessed with saving. For the sake of saving. To fill some need. To think they are beating a system by not giving up more time, money, whatever than it wants to. It never occurs to someone, if they spent less time trying to save, they'd have more time to spend.
Besides, too much is always better, than not enough.
The first three paragraphs would go great on a flyer.
My great grandfather used to say, "there was a sale today. We saved so much money we went broke."
Yeah, for all our "save on ____ when you ____"...we are one of the least saving countries on Earth.
Damn you ultraultraconsumerism!!!
And as a former slave to Retail Helltm I can confidently inform you that the retail companies don't let you "save" all that much.  All they do is mark down the stuff that they were charging too much for in the first place.  Trust me, they are still making plenty of bank on the stuff they are "drastically discounting."
I used to work in RetailHell.
now, it's service sector. high-paying service for all that nitwitty hi-tech gadgetry, even. on one hand, it's sad to see society going the way of the cuckoo. on the other hand, i have a big screen tv that nobody can repossess.
your rant is the truth of course, but nobody will listen. as usual, they will continue to spend and spend, and then interest rates will drop again and banks will all-of-a-sudden-like decide that lower and lower credit scores will pass as acceptable for larger and larger lines of credit. this is the Plan. nobody wants to get out of debt. and nobody wants them to get out. soon enough, it won't matter how much you save because you'll owe everything you spend anyway. ownership of goods = political power.
"He who has the most toys wins" = philosophy that has been in effect for the last few decades at least.
Meh. Reliance upon toys causes you to topple eventually. Our perspective is just skewed because we only examine such a shot time frame.
I was thinking on the way to work this morning, as I was passing an electrical sub-station, how easy it would be to put the Western world in a tailspin by simply knocking out a couple of grids.
How would we survive without our internets and our Teevee?
Even better, what if we could leave the other electrical stuff intact (so hospitals don't have to run on generators, etc.) but just knock out the TV and internets?
I already know that I would go batshit crazy without my internets.