Artistic Footprint

Call me crazy here, but I must have missed the consumerism boat. I hate Christmas, I own a used vehicle, I sleep on a foamie in a room. I live for work and work to live. I don’t have any debt which probably makes me one of the richest Canadians. Which brings me to my next period of angst. I’ve spent the last 3 days researching and number-crunching for a “new” truck that I could afford, and have had some interesting experiences, all painting a bigger picture about what makes us all consumer whores.

I have recently noticed that a lot of my friends and co-workers have a lot of nice things. Key words lots and nice. And on the grander scale, I notice older folks with way more super expensive things. I feel subjected and pressured into aiming for those goals – it seems that everyone wants to be rich. But then I ask: How the HELL do these people afford such things? I mean I make some decent coin (modest, but still a surplus I feel) and there is no physical way that my wallet could stretch more than $500 in rent and the upkeep of a simple car.

After spending hours in car dealerships (lying about my income and budget) I have found out how. People borrow. Like a lot. The concept of owning something before you own it is just customary in the west. For example, a truck I looked at costs more than I make in a year, and yet somehow this dude in a leather coat and fresh hair says I can have it TODAY for $400 a month, and he says it’s MINE.

This may be simple in principle, but consider the structure of the everyday person. After highschool you go to university and drop $30,000 for an education that statistically you are unlikely to use, and probably pay off until you’re 35. At the same time you try to afford a vehicle at roughly $15000 – which really only lasts as is for no more than 6 years. This of course doesn’t include the mortgage of $200,000. And ontop of all this debt there’s inflation, asset depreciation, maintenance, and taxes in the double-digits. And even worse, the value of these assets is not even in your control. One person in Ottawa can sign a paper that curve-balls your financial plans and leaves you with nothing but debt.

There are people out there that just make money on money, like collection services who buy debt at increased rates, stock investors that play games, banks that give money away that they don’t have and gain immeasurable interest on loans…

This is how we operate in a capitalist system. If no one is buying, then no one is making money. This is why the government bought out corporations and devised plans to make people spend more money that they didn’t have – just to keep the system running. Adding more to the national debt. The concept of buying out a private corporation with taxpayer’s money IS by definition, communism. I laugh at the fact that General Motors was briefly a state-owned company in the most capitalist country on the planet – but no body says anything!

Can this be linked to resource depletion? overpopulation? climate change? Considering that even a quarter of the worlds population has this kind of mindset and these kinds of transactions are happening immensely large and immensely fast, I think so.

I can’t stand being in debt. being in debt means that you are a negative to someone – be it a friend, parent, or a company – you are a liability. You literally own nothing or at best small percentages of nothing. – Which means that you are enjoying the fruits of luxury at someone else’s expense. The problem is that the person you owe to WANTS you to owe them money, because they make money from your interest! If every citizen has their part in national debt, who do they answer to? Who pays for it? Who do we hurt to pay it off?

These luxuries should not exist – not for our population and not for our comforts. Life is supposed to be hard, and when it is, you learn to appreciate it a lot more.