Consumers are expected to use “buy now, pay later” payment plans heavily this holiday season, a forecast that bodes well for retailers but that has credit experts again sounding alarm bells.
As much as the right wing cranks completely misunderstood this, they were right to be upset about it.
It is selling us a world in which we will have to rent access to everything, and telling us we should be happy with that development, where we can be nickel and dimed to death to an eternity. A class of people permanently in debt, a perfect consumer, who will pay them every day for the rest of their lives. That’s what companies actually want anyway, a consumer they can count on to give them money month to month until they die.
However, the consumers are also to blame here. It’s 2023, and we still have people completely bought into the lie that Black Friday deals are good (they aren’t and never were) and that we all need to have an absolute blowout in terms of presents for one another for the “holidays.” The number of consumers who haven’t stopped to question any of this madness are indeed part of the equation. While corporations sell us down the river and keep buying out our civil rights, there are still plenty of consumers who keep paying more and more, but never stop to question why. Which is honestly really crazy, how could you have made it to 2023 and seen the explosion in costs of, well everything, and not be like “something is amiss here, maybe this game is rigged and wrong?”
True. Before they would put out special black friday models that were stripped down in some regards. Now they do that but also jack the price up a month before so they can point and say see, sales!
I just had a little argument with a friend about a party they’re having with a gift exchange. I said it was a landfill generator and we should make things or give food. Her argument is that without brightly colored plastic packaged in clear plastic wrapped in plastyicized paper it just wouldn’t be Christmas!
As much as the right wing cranks completely misunderstood this, they were right to be upset about it.
It is selling us a world in which we will have to rent access to everything, and telling us we should be happy with that development, where we can be nickel and dimed to death to an eternity. A class of people permanently in debt, a perfect consumer, who will pay them every day for the rest of their lives. That’s what companies actually want anyway, a consumer they can count on to give them money month to month until they die.
However, the consumers are also to blame here. It’s 2023, and we still have people completely bought into the lie that Black Friday deals are good (they aren’t and never were) and that we all need to have an absolute blowout in terms of presents for one another for the “holidays.” The number of consumers who haven’t stopped to question any of this madness are indeed part of the equation. While corporations sell us down the river and keep buying out our civil rights, there are still plenty of consumers who keep paying more and more, but never stop to question why. Which is honestly really crazy, how could you have made it to 2023 and seen the explosion in costs of, well everything, and not be like “something is amiss here, maybe this game is rigged and wrong?”
I disagree that there were never any good deals on Black Friday, there were at one time just not anymore. Other than that I agree with you.
True. Before they would put out special black friday models that were stripped down in some regards. Now they do that but also jack the price up a month before so they can point and say see, sales!
Company stores but it’s the whole country instead.
I just had a little argument with a friend about a party they’re having with a gift exchange. I said it was a landfill generator and we should make things or give food. Her argument is that without brightly colored plastic packaged in clear plastic wrapped in plastyicized paper it just wouldn’t be Christmas!