One of My Thoughts on Life

Ok here it is finally I get this out. I was going to make this third post later and on the subject of diet but there is something that has been messing over my chi for the last week.

Last week I was watching a documentary on TV. For those of you with Rodgers cable it would be channel 26 CBCNW. For those of you in Canada (where I live) and not using Rodgers this is the channel that has the shows passionate eye, the lens, the big picture, and equator plus a whole lot of news broadcasts. Anyway on to my point, I was watching a documentary and some commercials came on. No biggie there commercials are just one of those necessary evils you deal with. Then this commercial comes on for a children's toy probably ages like 3-8 called Dora's shopping something or other. The jingle like thing that was accompanying it was to damn annoying to ignore.

Personally things of this sort of nature while superficial are of some value. You teach children that things cost money and that's one step to raising a fiscally responsible adult. But this commercial turned this wonderful idea into something sinister and evil. Yes I said it sinister and evil and I don't use either term lightly. I was fine with this toy even though I hated the commercial right up until I heard in that super corny jingle type way the words "cash or credit. Shopping is so fun." That's where I draw the line. Right there is the thing that pisses me off. This here is the absolute worst thing you could teach a child. They get the idea that you wave this little plastic card in front of this device and it gives you anything you want even when you don't have any cash on you.

This wouldn't have been so bad if I had seen this commercial once or maybe twice but it kept reappearing during the shows THAT I WATCH. This reminded me of something I saw like a month or more ago during an episode of house. It was on during a time slot on the fox owned channel I get that wasn't on a Canadian channel or I never would have seen this. But during a 1 hour episode of house, an extremely popular medical drama I might add, there were 6 count them 1,2,3,4,5,6 commercials for debt reducers and consolidators. Now keep in mind this is during a very popular TV show here. If you don't know the more popular a show the more money it's commercial slots are worth so the company was shelling out some big bucks to get this aired during house, they must have expected big returns.

I've not seen this phenomenon on the Canadian channels I do watch but I am guessing the next generation of Dora the explorer shopping center users are going to need these services.

Now don't take this as a rip on credit cards. No quite the opposite the credit card can be an amazing thing in a time of emergency or something expensive that suddenly become a necessity, Like a bike for getting to and from work or maybe a car for the same purpose. Or in the case something breaks down or needs replacing. A credit card can help you buy those items that come up without warning but are to expensive to be able to afford otherwise.

The problem becomes when people live off credit cards. People have like 3 4 or even 5 credit cards what the hell has this world come to. Have we lost all reason and the words fiscal responsibility?