Shop Till You Drop (or until the Boyfriend flings himself off a Balcony)

We didn't have enough room in the header to add the word 'Literally' to the end.

Seems this is the new normal and its not just Americans and Westerners who are pre-conditioned with this mental nugget to 'shop shop shop' as a means of fulfillment, therapy and to celebrate the birth of Christ..

From Shanghaiist.com:  "When his girlfriend insisted on prolonging their Christmas shopping marathon, 38-year-old Tao Hsiao leapt from a seventh-story walkway and killed himself in a Jiangsu shopping mall.

Tao and his girlfriend had reportedly been (shopping in the mall) for some five hours before a rather routine relationship scuffle escalated drastically out of proportion.

Tao told his girlfriend that "she already had enough shoes, more shoes that she could wear in a lifetime and it was pointless buying any more," according to a witness. Tao was then accused of "spoiling Christmas," and the shouting match likely would have continued had Tao not chosen that moment to hurl himself over the seventh-story balcony.

Tao fell through elaborate Christmas decorations and crashed into a shopping stall on the mall's ground level, injuring no one but himself in the process. He died on impact."

One of those empty articles that fills the daily news that is supposed to garner reactions from 'How Sad!  to 'How Idiotic' with a black comedy laugh thrown in..

But that's not why we're mentioning it..

It seems all the most horrible Western values of consumerism and consumption and attaching to ego has been successfully marketed into pretty much the four corners of the world.

Doesn't matter if its communist China or Cuba or Saudi Arabia and Iran..  Every nation with very few exceptions (North Korea and the truly poorest and desolate) has bought into the consumption culture of buying on want more than need, and the banking principles of 'charge now, pay later'

And yes, hate to say it but we are to blame..

We export the concepts via our entertainment which is why certain nations and backwards religious movements hate our policies and feel no guilt about hurting/killing our populace even though their youth secretly want our blue jeans and fantasize being on American Idol.

And consumerism seeps in everywhere..

Last night we watched a news item about Syria which is in year 3 of its protracted civil war and the report was showing the reaction upon displaced women and their children while a rare snowfall to that region was making things feel even more miserable.

And as one woman spoke, her children nearby were wearing different flimsy sweaters and shirts..  One had Big Bird from Sesame Street on the front.  Another was Spongebob Squarepants.  And another said 'Super Bowl XLVII Champions San Francisco 49ers'

Obviously this woman with her traditional headscarf did not walk into a Syrian version of Wal-Mart and buy this..  it was in all likelihood Red Cross donated apparel..  someone else's hand-me-downs

BTW if you hadn't already picked up on it, Super Bowl XLVII which was the game played this past January to culminate the 2012 season was won by Baltimore and NOT San Francisco..

Apparel companies will print an equal number of merchandise that says each team is a winner in a particular sport its licensed for and the losing side has its merchandise sent overseas to clothe third-world children in exchange for tax credit.

We said it before.. will say it again..   If magically people celebrated the Christmas season in the proper way it was intended, with minimal emphasis on shopping and purchasing, the global economy would crash on itself within a short period...

Too much inventory..  We need people buying gifts for their mailman, 4th cousins and the newspaper delivery boy or else stores would be stuck with the glut and shut down as 3rd world factories would have to fire its low-paid workers in masses..

And if no one was buying, what would be the purpose of all those loud, intrusive TV ads where social agenda issues are forced into people's subconscious and every group other than those of faith have to be represented for even a half-second to appease the PC bean-counters.

Pretty sad we think of ourselves as an inclusive melting-pot society while pushing the myth that people only purchase goods and services of quality and/or value if they see direct visual representation in an advert..

Child: "I don't want Cheerios Mommy.. too Plain, Boring & White.."
Mommy: "Then try some Chocolate Cheerios.. its my favorite.. Yum" ~giggle
Child: "Mommy, why are you giggling like that?"

And if not for the ads, the TV networks couldn't make excessive profits and use that money on content that often contradicts the values you espouse in your personal life or how you wish to raise your family.

It's all one big chain of events and it all comes back to this fictitious post-2008 economy that only is surviving because of the Fed bailing out the world's banking apparatus...

And like undetected cancer in the body, we're blissfully unaware of the danger which is the Fed Reserve until its way too late..  There is no 'chemo' to kill off the Fed.

So we guess in a perverted way, President Bush was correct...

Shopping is Patriotic,,

And the woman in China who shopped for 5 straight hours and caused her nutty bf to kill himself..  Well, she should get China's version of a citizen's medal.

It is people like her keeping China from falling into an abyss.