Forum Post: How much "stuff" is in your house?
Posted 11 years ago on Sept. 6, 2013, 11:22 a.m. EST by Waiting
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This content is user submitted and not an official statement
The core of WallSt and the crux of every lagit topic surrounding inequality is consumerism. Get rid of your "stuff". Learn to live a stuff free life and show others how to do it. What you get in return is the ability to save your money, more free time and a major reduction in your level of stress. A small side effect is that this also makes your house easier to clean.
I never hear anyone talking about consumerism in practice, only as an ideological reference as if some big thing to defeat.
Yard sale it, donate it, throw it away and don't buy it back. Make a list of what you need to get by in today's society and try living with only your needs. When you get bored, it's time to go find friends and family to go hang out with :)
God bless.
i need a vacuum cleaner , anyone in ny area, pleace
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Snowden, The Great recession, yada yada. You haven't seen anything yet. Are you familiar with collective consciousness? Doomsday fears in every corner of the world and it's not being pushed by the media or governments. What do you suppose those fears could be driven by?
Fun reading http://noosphere.princeton.edu/
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Courses in social media, a BA and a typical lower middle-class lifestyle? lol, I don't really care what you've seen. I was answering your question.
I'm curious about the psychological side effects of what you and team twinkle have been doing on the web for the last almost 3 years now. I'm sure it will make for an interesting paper.
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ITs an ongoing struggle to control the purchases temptations.
Just yesterday, I'm at checkout at the grocery store, and there is is. Neat little wind chimes, 50% off and now only $5.00. Had to slap my own wrist and realize, in the middle of an economic meltdown, wind chimes arent going to pay the bills.
Ya, it was only $5, but thats the point. $10 here, $30 there, $5 there...it adds up over the course of a week, a month, a year, a lifetime.
I dropped my website about a year ago
the server company wanted $12 /month
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Storage Wars. This is so ubermerican I can hardly even stand it. One, it uses the word "war" and secondly it's a show about "stuff". People have so much stuff, they pay to store the stuff they can't use because they have too much stuff. Rather than donate it to less fortunate families, they pay to keep stuff they don't use.
How about no.
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Al Gore needs his three homes, and private jet....but you chumps should be happy living in your mom's basement. Al says collect another barrel of rainwater asshole. Al needs to fill his fountains in the front of his mansion. Fucking hippy CHUMPS..believing Gore's big LIE. Meanwhile he collects 5 million from Quatar oil shieks.
Define stuff. Somethings just make life easier. That is the purpose of technological advancement. I agree you shouldn't buy from unethical companies, but that doesn't make the products bad. BTW since you are posting online I take it you still own stuff yourself.
Fiddler on the roof - Anatevka (with subtitles)
I'm not sure where you are going with this. They live without much but also seem pretty miserable.
me neither
they sure were abused
They had a hard life. What a lot of people don't understand is that without the advancements we have made that would be our life also. Maybe not quite as bleak seeming but the standard of living would be closer to theirs then ours.
We are all in the system one way or another.
That last shot might have been unfair but I don't like it when people think just cause they are satisfied with minimal possessions that everyone is. We live in a time of major advancements in technology and I don't see anything wrong with that technology being used to entertain and delight us.
I think the point is we live in an age of uber consumerism. A time when shopping is a recreation. A time when people have so much stuff they have to rent storage facilities.
Think about it. We buy big screen TV's by the millions, we think nothing of spending $25K on a car. We stand in line to buy the newest i-phone. We pend $4 a day on one one cup of Starbucks. We have to have the most in vogue clothes and live the the finest houses.
Yep, I agree, "stuff" is a problem, and we'd all be better of if we stopped buying so much stuff.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-john-roberts/homeless-woman-lives-in-p_b_772783.html
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=20169843
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/08/28/13282/secretive-super-pac-may-be-breaking-federal-law
Perhaps "stuff" wouldn't be such an issue, if we didn't have to pay for "stuff" like this.
How's the WAR economy in Texas doing these days?
Stocks are up, up up.
Spending to much is a different issue then buying things you enjoy. I spent about 200 dollars on my ps3 plus buying a used game every once in a while and I feel the years of entertainment I have had makes it well worth the price. I also spent about 150 on a smartphone which is my only contact to the web. With all the music and the access to YouTube I once again feel it was money well spent. Just because some people find enjoyment in simple things doesn't mean everyone does.
One of the most insidious marketing campaigns has been to convince the masses they need smart phones; that they need to be tethered to their phones every second of the day. My point is the corporations have convinced us we "need" every new shiny thing that comes along. When in fact we don't need much at all.
I've never felt I needed a smartphone but it makes thing easier. Same thing with most products. As long as products make our life easier people will buy them. Without the drive to make life easier and more enjoyable we wouldn't have most of the tech we now have.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/09/04/2571871/port-arthur-keystone/
Look at all that shiny oil. Texas wants every shiny bit of it, no matter who dies. As long as it's mostly brown people..
Didn't I see you defending the UAW on another thread? You do know where that oil goes, don't you?
I am sure the UAW would be just as happy assembling electric or hydrogen powered vehicles. A vehicle is just a vehicle to the worker putting it together.
Maybe. Right now they assemble gas guzzling, air killing, OPEC enriching vehicles. Seems weird to be anti oil and pro automobile. It's like being anti NRA and pro bullet makers union.
NO - there isn't a maybe about it. Your beef is with the executives of every auto company in the world - not the workers on the line. Sorry that U seem to have tunnel vision.
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blah blah blah. You're the resident psycho right? The dangerous loner who strikes fear in the establishment? Go sell it to the rubes. I ride the subway with ten like you every single day and it's only ten because I live in a better neighborhood then my friends. Not impressed.
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Have you always pretended that the UAW assembles all the cars in the world?
Besides, it isn't even remotely possible that you could have seen any of those posts.
You've only been here for 2 days, zilla.
Remotely possible? You mean you can't scroll down the screen and read older posts? I came here a few times before signing up, but even if I just discovered this site today, I could read all of the older posts.
But you didn't.
You are not a smart man. Thanks for answering my original question.
Maybe not, but I have your number.
Coulda, woulda, shoulda. The world can't pump enough oil to quench the thirst. As long as people drive oil based fuel cars, and the UAW continues to make those the vehicles we will continue to have oil wells pumping.
Find a way to stop demand for oil then we'll talk. Until then STFU.
Your beef is with the executives of every auto company in the world - not the workers on the line. Sorry that U seem to be an idiot.
No, my beef is with shooz for trolling me on every thread. Why don't you mods get shooz under control? He's done so much damage to OWS it's not funny.
Nah - your beef is your lack of intelligence. But here an educational piece for you.
a clear reason why Unions matter.
Join us in demanding that OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) inspect the five chemical plants in Texas that kicked out state fire inspectors who were trying to prevent another West, Texas tragedy. Click here to sign our petition.
Back in April, a fertilizer plant exploded in the small town of West, Texas—killing 14 people and injuring 200. The plant stored explosive ammonium nitrate—but had no alarms, no automatic shutoff system, no firewall and no sprinkler system. And it was across the street from a school.
When Texas fire inspectors stepped up their enforcement after this tragedy, five chemical plants flat-out denied them entry. And there’s nothing under Texas law that mandates such inspections. The state has no fire code, and only scheduled inspections are required.
If Texas can’t protect its residents, the federal government must. Sign our petition to OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) demanding that they inspect the five chemical plants who have denied access to the Texas fire inspectors.
Keep fighting, Laura Clawson, Daily Kos
Wait? What??
You trolled me with your comments on how the UAW destroyed the big 3.
I proved they didn't and you kept up with your lie.
I would say your repeated lie, is more damaging than my requests for an explanation.
And then there's Texas. Something else you don't really want to discuss the reality of.
I do believe the UAW contributed to the near collapse of the big three. I believe the UAW is a rouge organization that thinks only of themselves, the company and customers be damned.
I know you disagree. And that;s OK, you're as entitled to your opinion as I am. As I said a before, I spent most of my career as a union member. I really am not anti-union. I just think the UAW is, or was, a bad union.
So sue me. You have your opinion and I have mine. Why not leave it at that?
The UAW had nothing to do with it, narley
It's not a matter of opinion narley.
It's a matter of you passing a propaganda lie.
Passing it willingly.
You are 100% anti-union narley, or you wouldn't lie about them, so stop pretending you're not.
I don't have to sue you, I will just keep telling you this awful truth about yourself.
You are anti-union and pro war profiteer.
It is amazing that narley can blame the UAW for the near collapse of the American auto industry - when in fact it was the owners of the American auto industry which imperiled the industry by selling expensive stripped down gas guzzlers to a consumer base that was being increasingly starved for income and facing increasing ( for no reason ) gas prices - while foreign ( OK mostly Japanese ) Auto makers flooded the market with less expensive higher gas mileage cars that were made well and had extras - STANDARD.
I could describe expensive waste, safety and quality compromises made by management that were protested all the way along by the UAW.
Stuff I saw them do, Stuff I personally protested.
It wouldn't matter to someone who refuses to understand what really happened.
He prefers the comfort of his right wing lie.
Not really necessary - as I have plenty of my own experience - of management playing lip service to quality programs to satisfy customer requirements while at the same time doing their best to ignore requirements that they agreed to fulfill.
.................................:)
Fer narley, I'll make an exception.
Well of denying reality anyway. {:-])
Probably not relevant to this conservation, but an interesting story. I don’t know if Harley workers are part of the UAW. But in the early 1980’s AMF owned Harley Davidson. Harleys at that time were basically oil leaking junk. Japan was flooding the US market with better and cheaper motorcycles. Harley was about to go out of business.
In 1981 Harley CEO Vaughn Beals, Willie G. Davidson and nine other investors bought Harley from AMF for $65 million dollars, just days away from Harley having to shut down. Over the next couple of years the plants were modernized and Harley came out with a decent engine (the Evo motor). It was an immediate hit. Then Harley went to congress and claimed Japan was flooding the market with cheaper motorcycles just to drive Harley out of business. Congress believed them and imposed a hefty tariff on imported motorcycles. The tariff was to last seven years in order to give Harley time to get back in the game. Honda built a plant in the US to avoid paying the tariff. It closed a couple of years ago.
Fast forward to 2013. Harley is the largest seller of large displacement motorcycles in the world. They have an assembly plant in India, and sell more motorcycles overseas than in the US.
So here’s the rub. Harley hasn’t keep up with technology (again). Japanese bikes are far superior to Harley’s. I’ve owned some type of motorcycle for over fifty years. Currently own a collectable Kawasaki H2 and a newer Harley Road Glide. Harley’s are overpriced, over weight and under powered. They still use the 100 year old 45 degree technology. The only thing that sells Harleys is the cool factor, the rumble and the outlaw image. But younger riders aren’t impressed. I wonder if Harley will exist as a company.
I thought about this story because a couple of years ago Harley threatened to close a couple of plants unless the union would make concessions. They came to an agreement and the plants remained open.
When an organization becomes as large as the UAW, its going to get filled with corruption. While I wouldnt put the majority of the blame on them- more on the need to satisfy shareholders and cut corners- they are certainly in on it.
http://www.labornotes.org/2001/06/uaw-members-expose-widespread-corruption
This gives Texas carte blanche to kill and sicken it's residents how, exactly?
Plus you're another one of those that insists that the UAW builds every car in the world??
Even as you debase them in every comment you can?
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Nobody who has replied to this thread gets the larger picture. We create and perpetuate the problems we have with capitalism today. We create the motivation for immoral business decisions, we give incentive to sell toxic assets and privatize every aspect of society. If we are willing to pay for everything, all the time, big and small, important an meaningless purchase, someone will be their to sell it to us. Self control in consumer habits translates into control over our capitalist economy. It's not a complicated idea. It's supply and demand.
I got the larger picture. This is the part where you and your gang just go around the internet and tell people that with all the broke dick jobs that it's really good for them to do without anything.
How did Builder put it?
Homelessness is a state of mind
Ya.
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Exactly. There's a concept in marketing called "perceived value." If you can convince some dumb asses that a simple cup of coffee is worth five bucks, they'll buy it. And if they do, others will follow. Which is why I've never spent a penny in Starbucks and think that anyone that has, is part of the problem.
All Starbucks had to do was convince the average coffee-drinker that Seattle hipsters and Hollywood stars drink the shit, and look what happened. Bam! Starbucks goes worldwide.
Kanye just marketed a plain white t-shirt, charged $120 a pop, and SOLD OUT!!
Welcome to "Idiocracy ."
I think what would work better than an Occupy movement is an economic control movement, or economic activism. It would work within the existing system, have real and recognizable goals, and tangible results. It wouldn't stir socialist fears and would be impossible for the media to discredit without sounding like a bunch of greedy tools.
There's a few of us on here that have been preaching about not being such mindless consumers, but how would you go about getting that message to go mainstream? If you do some web searching (if you haven't already) you'll see just how ingrained consumerism has become. "The Century of the Self" is but one source. Essentially what marketers have done is tap into some of our baser instincts and they've been honing this for nearly a century.
Short of abject poverty, what's going to stop the masses from buying shit they don't really need? And what would that do to the economy? I mean, spending money is 'fun,' that's why their plan has been so effective all these years. It would require not only a fundamental shift in people's mindset, en masse, but also a complete rethinking of the economy as a whole.
A marketing campaign that makes people fee like they're being taken advantage of, and presenting outlets to show them how it's happening.
Nothing more primal than the reaction you have when you think someone got their jollies at your expense.
Hmmm, that's an interesting angle to play. I like it. I like it a lot.
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Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd.
You know what's really cool? Listening to a dimwit that talks about a show on tv where they go in and bid on a storage unit that someone has not been able to keep up the payments and then watch them sell the stuff. The same dimwits sit around and act like that is proof that people have too much.
Are we crowded yet?
No takers? ...nobody on this forum interested in confronting their own consumerist habits?
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would it be inappropriate to remind people of their binding debts on a site geared towards entertainment sales ?