I ordered a couple of books just a minute ago from Amazon.com. They were both paperback books that cost only $11 each. It has been awhile since I ordered anything from Amazon, and I had forgotten just how easy that whole process is. I clicked on “checkout” and the website asked me for my email. I went to type it in, and was surprised when it already knew my email address. (Chrome must have imported my cookies from Firefox; nice of it to do that, wasn't it?). Then Amazon came up with a screen with all my data already there—shipping address, billing address, credit card number. I just had to click on one confirm button and the books are in the mail.
So Amazon is what is wrong with the world today. It is why Fannie Mae and Merrill Lynch are in such trouble. It's why consumer debt is out of control (our national revolving credit card debt hit an all-time high in July at just under $970 billion!). OK, so it's not all Amazon's fault, bit it is WAY TOO EASY to buy stuff today! Two clicks of the mouse and the books are in the mail. What if I always had to go to the bank to withdraw the money and drive to the bookstore and browse the shelves, etc. Well, I probably wouldn’t buy nearly as much stuff! And what if you added the step of having to dig up the potatoes to take to the market to sell to make the money to take to the store… Then I wouldn’t have time to read, so I could skip the whole thing!
The upshot is that it is so easy for us to buy things that we don’t have to stop to ask whether we can afford them or really need them. We spend money that we don’t have on stuff that we don’t need, all because it is so easy.
3 comments:
Dude, this is all way too philosophical for me.
What if we had to squeegee the tennis court before...oh, wait...
The credit that has been extended and the rates that some charge is a problem. Here is another problem, every time you get something you have to sore it somewhere and if you are getting things you don’t need that could become a really problem. Maybe there is a reason you get things you don’t need. When I go grocery shopping for my family (which is not often) I eat first because if I do not I might get hungry and forget something we need. Sometimes I forget to eat and I have to stop and get a sandwich. I was at Walmart getting food saver vacuum storage bags. When I scanned the box of two 11inch by 18 foot roles, it said I owed almost 19 dollars. Well, 19 dollars was a lot but small price to pay for storing all those vegetables. So I placed the box of bags on the scale slipped in a twenty, it took my twenty and aid I still owed, I said “excuse me!” to the women who was working the computer (she was wearing my wife’s name). After a few minutes the machine got opened up again and I was on my way with my 19 dollar (plus a few minutes) box of bags. My point is that even the automated machines can rip you off if you are not aware. What if I had charged that on a credit card and got charged more? It would have taken much longer to detect the error and would have been more difficult if not impossible to correct it. Check your receipts and be careful who you give your currency to.
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