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I happened to be in a Big Box Emporium, buying 2 bags of entire wheat flour, when an unusual discovery struck me: practically nothing in this giant emporium was made in the U.S.A.. Apologists will rapidly explain that the two bags of whole wheat flour were “made in the U.S.A.,” and note the US-made products in the food, alcohol and drink aisles; but roam out of these aisles and inform me the number of the hundreds of products are made in the U.S.A. (not put together of foreign components, but made entirely in the U.S.A.). The answer is extremely couple of.
I expect this fact is average to the majority of Americans, however my response was, sorry, America, you lost me: how is this not ridiculous to depend on sweatshops countless miles away to make practically whatever on the shelves and storage facilities of the U.S.?
It’s as if a war was stated on manufacturing in America and we lost– or merely gave up.
If you want to purchase a bulldozer or electric lorry, you can Buy American, and if you purchase an iPhone, the firmware is conjured in Cupertino (the phone is assembled in China of parts sourced globally). But below a specific rate point and outside the snacks, magazines and beer aisles, U.S.-made good are “unique order” if they’re readily available at all.
Is this because the foreign made things is so high quality? No, it’s essentially all trash quality. A war was stated on quality, and America lost. Practically nothing on the racks of America’s Huge Box Emporiums and satisfaction storage facilities is resilient; it’s either developed to stop working (planned obsolescence) or it’s so badly made that it breaks, fades, rips, tears, delaminates or stops working, and is dutifully hauled to the garbage dump as part of the whole Garbage dump Economy. (Forget attempting to repair it; it’s been developed to be impossible to fix, and all the components are junk, too.)
If stuff breaks or stops working in brief order, it isn’t cheap, no matter what the cost says. It’s expensive since it must be continuously changed. A war was stated on value, and America lost. Sorry, America, you lost me. How is the transition from quality and value to scrap not a total disaster for the nation?
So what is the business of America!.?. !? Marketing. Whatever comes down to marketing in America. Everything is a channel to gather customer data that can be monetized (no, you can’t monetize your own information; that’s not how it works) or a channel to upsell anybody captured in the value chain.
You may naively think an iPhone is a device for telephone call and texts. Silly you! It’s absolutely nothing however a channel to upsell you Apple services. The “settings” on my old SE still have a nag notification since “establishing” your iPhone suggests registering for Apple TV, Apple Music, Apple Pay, Apple Skim and Apple Fraud.
My Mom-in-law remains in her 90s and like lots of in her age, she delights in viewing TELEVISION. She lives with us therefore we handle the cable TV subscription for her. She asked us to get the commercial-free English-language network from Japan, NHK, and naturally this is only available in a package of rubbish channels.
Since I have a basketball hoop for my physical fitness amusement and have actually long been a roundball fan, I clicked to the NBA channel noted. It was nothing but a series of moronic adverts. I tried again later, nothing however moronic adverts. I quit on the 3rd try, because it dawned on me that obviously this channel does not really televise any real basketball, it only assures to do so at some later date; and in the meantime, here is an endless stream of moronic adverts.
Sorry, America, you lost me. Marketing and upselling is not prosperity or success, it’s ruination.
The list of channels that are nothing but data mining, marketing and upselling is limitless in America. Every membership service is absolutely nothing more than a channel to upsell you on “Premium services.”
Social media: absolutely nothing but data mining, marketing and upselling.
Web Browse: nothing but information mining, marketing and upselling.
Media, telecommunications, banking, and so on: nothing however data mining, marketing and upselling. Take a look at the most successful and highest assessment corporations in America, and their sole business design and factor to exist is information mining, marketing and upselling.
The Health care Borg is likewise nothing but data mining, marketing and upselling. If you want to get a look indicating extensive suspicion of your motives and beliefs, tell your healthcare provider, “I’m over 65 and don’t take any medications.” Within the Borg, such a statement can only suggest 1) you haven’t yet signed up for Medicare/Medicaid, and we need to get you in the gravy-train pronto; 2) you’re some sort of nutcase who declines medications, or 3) you’re a harmful subversive who ought to be reported to Facebook as a prospective extremist.
The Health care Borg’s marketing has reached extremes of absurdity. Specialists are under extreme pressure from Business HQ to bill you for something on a regular basis, therefore I got increasingly frantic phone calls and emails requiring I established a telemarketing, oops, I imply telemedicine confab with my PCP (medical care physician– the Borg loves acronyms as much as the Pentagon).
I midway expected to be accosted on the street by hooligans notifying me to make a telemedicine appointment or “we’re gon na have to break something.” Sorry, America, you lost me. When health care stopped having to do with supporting health, especially through standard preventative steps, and ended up being a earnings center and marketing channel, the wellness of the country spiraled into the sewage system.
While I mistakenly waited on a basketball video game to appear on the NBA channel– how ignorant of me!– I clicked through a few film channels. The offerings were the most current batch of the super-hero genre. As a big fan of action movies, I had hopes these might reverse my disinterest in the genre. Nope. The films were okay, they were just … boring and derivative.
Sorry, America, you lost me. Everything that’s a derivative of something that was imaginative and fresh years earlier is boring, and practically everything is a derivative. America undergoes a remake of a remake of a remake, with a switch of media being the expected creative magic.
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America’s cultural obsession with super-heroes made me question, in a precariously subversive fashion, what this implies below the superficiality of reaping dependable earnings. Does it now require super-human powers to survive the onslaught of exploitation, profiteering, overwork and direct exposure to fanatical marketing, data mining and upselling that is life in the U.S.A.!
.?.!? Or does this cultural fascination show our worry that we’re up until now decreased the roadway of worshiping billionaires blowing billions on area tourism that just super-heroes can conserve us?
Sorry, America, you lost me. Lots of readers will compose all this off as the sour rantings of some out-of-it geezer. However ask yourself: what if everything stated here is correct, however no one dares discuss it since that might make it real!
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