Is Everything Just Too Available?

"Consumption. This is the new national pastime. F*** baseball, it's consumption, the only true, lasting American value that's left . . . buying things . . . People spending money they don't have on things they don't need . . . So they can max out their credit cards and spend the rest of their lives paying 18 percent interest on something that cost $12.50. And they didn't like it when they got it home anyway. Not too bright, folks, not too f*****' bright." ~ George Carlin

Remember when you got your first walkman? Or for the older generation, remember when you got your first transistor radio? What was available for your listening pleasure? AM stations that sounded like they came from outer space. But you did get better reception at night! Then the walkman gave us the availability to listen to "mix tapes", a collection of our absolute favorite 10 to 20 (only if you had the 120 minute maxell blank tape) songs. AND WE WERE HAPPY!!

Then CDs came out. Then computers. Then we burned CDs to listen in our CD Walkmans. Then some genius figured out, "Hey, since we've come all this way to make music recordings crystal clear and perfect, why don't we just compress the life out of it so we can fit hundreds of mediocre quality songs on a chip.....that way we get more of what we love." The fact is, we don't love it anymore.

Now songs are available a la carte, readily available to you at your fingertips. Thousands upon thousands of sub-standard, mediocre, uninspiring songs by artists and producers with little to no talent. And I don't blame them. There is no incentive to be better. Why work hard at your craft and come up with an album full of hits when you can "collaberate" with some other mediocre, uninspiring artist du jour for one controversial hit that everyone will download on iTunes. And the only reason most people will buy it is because its number one on the downloads list today, and it will add to the total quantity of songs possessed by that person. Because that's how we judge people; by the amount of songs they own. It isn't uncommon for the average teenager to have 2000 or more songs. With file sharing, many of these songs aren't even paid for. And if it's free, it's worth having on the iPod.

All that music...all that availability. Sometimes you have such a hard time deciding what to listen to, that you just give up and watch TV.

Aha!! TV!! From rabbit ears getting the 3 major networks, to cable TV and getting a few more, to satellite TV and getting thousands of shows. Thousands of shows!!!! What kind of shows can we possibly dream up? There are TV shows about TV SHOWS!!!!! Then came TIVO. You don't even have to be around for your show when it's shown. Now there's ON-DEMAND. Sounds powerful, doesn't it. Say it with me with your best echoey voice...."ON-DEMAND". It doesn't even matter when the show is scheduled!!! You get it when you want it!!

All that viewing...all that availability. Sometimes you have such a hard time deciding what to watch, that you just give up and read a little.

What...the newspaper? Remember that old-fashioned way of learning about goings on around the world? Magazines? Not available enough. The internet has killed newspapers nearly to extinction. Magazines and local newscasts are a relic of the past. Too slow, old news. Millions and millions of websites can get us the information overload that we crave in an instant! We can find out the score to the game, the weather forecast for the next 7 years, and we can find out how Britney Spears is doing....in an instant!

All those websites...all that availability. Sometimes you have such a hard time sifting through the mindless drivel, that you decide to do some INTERNET SHOPPING!!

This is the ultimate in availability. Anything you want, at anytime of the day. This is where the quote at the beginning comes into play. "People spending money they don't have on things they don't need". Again, availability of a credit card. It doesn't even seem like real money.....It's because IT ISN'T REAL MONEY!!! And do you really need it?

CONSUMPTION. AVAILABILITY. The two go hand-in-hand. I've talked about the people who live paycheck to paycheck before. The people who increase their lifestyle when they get a raise. World-Class Consumers. The typical American.

Here's where the big problem with our economy started. When these typical American comsumption artists were given the availability of leverage, a catastrophic chain of events was set into motion. It was decided that people had a "right" to own a home. You used to have to put some of your own money in it to qualify for it. You used to have to save and save and work a second job and work late to save that down payment to qualify. Equity...True equity...Real money....less leverage....less risk. Then it became everyone's "right" to own a home. People who couldn't afford to buy a home were now able to qualify...with little to no money down (true equity). Helping out those less fortunate with the "American Dream". Then, the average middle-class guy (who carries way too much debt and leverage) decides he's the next Donald Trump and wants to buy rentals!! WITH NO MONEY!! His home has "skyrocketed" in appraised value (false equity), so why not take that "free money" and leverage out a few more properties, with the hope we can rent them out and service them, then "flip" them when they are at the pinnacle of value!!!! Why not take some of this equity (false equity..not money) and dump all this personal debt I've accumulated over my lifetime into this house. After all, we're gonna sell it at the pinnacle and make a fortune! And why not buy some other stuff we don't need with the rest of the equity loan? No wonder the economy appeared to look so good. It was being propped up by a bunch of equity loan purchases!!

Typical American....if one house is good, four houses is better. If 1000 songs are good, 2000 songs are better. If 100 TV channels are good, 200 channels are better. News flash...you can't live in more than one house, you can't possibly listen to 2000 songs and you can't be interested in 200 TV channels.

SPENDING MONEY YOU DON'T HAVE ON THINGS YOU DON'T NEED. The reason is because it is all available to us. You don't even need real money. It's even advertised by VISA that it's easier than cash....really? And they're right! Cash takes longer now!!

Now it all comes crashing down. All the loan selling, refinancing and shuffling of the fake money has caught up to all of us. Now we wonder why 90 percent of the wealth in this country is owned by the top 10 percent. They have the cash to snap up the properties at auction and carve themselves a larger slice of the pie. All because the leverage was too available to the average guy.

I liked the days of the mix tape. I liked having to make time to watch a football game on TV. I liked looking at the box score in the newspaper the next day.

I also liked the days where people had to work hard to save money to buy the things they needed, not coveted. I liked the days when people used good old cash to buy things they could afford, where they didn't become slaves to the corporate masters of leverage.

I have 3000 songs in my iTunes library. I have a playlist of about 150 songs I really like. That's about 7 or 8 mix tapes worth. And that's good enough for me. I bet George Carlin would have agreed with me.

But you know what? I do feel safe knowing I have those other 2850 songs available to me, though.