Canadian consumers 'Idle Lots More' in their unpaid-for wheels at the Peace Arch Border Crossing
Canadian consumers continue to pile up debt, especially auto loans and installment loan borrower debt [loans for big-ticket consumer items]. All forms of consumer debt - defined as all personal debt except mortgages - were up in total over 6% in the last 3 months of 2012. Alberta and BC leads the parade of fools each with over $37,000 per person - including children. Even though Albert Einstein warned us that, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.", Canadians are determined to keep trying convinced that soon retail therapy will come to their rescue.
Canadian consumers act like 2 year olds, gimme, gimme it and gimme it now. Plastic money enables consumer debt addiction but it's still the addicts themselves doing the over-consuming and racking up the debt. They've got to stop blaming everyone else, look in the mirror, and ask themselves:.What happened to planning, saving and then buying whatever you need? When did my wants become needs? When exactly did i become a pawn of the finance industry?
All addicts have a narrow field of vision, they see only what gets them their next fix, never the bigger picture. Global capitalism is powered by addicted and debt ridden consumers. Worse than Pavlov's dogs they line up to get their next fix of plastic Chinese crap, another big screen TV, a 'smart' phone or more designer bling at the malls and at the borders to get to even better malls. And for what? Addicts never remember that their last fix didn't fill the emotional hole, but remain convinced the next one will.
Meanwhile, the boats full of manufactured dreams float into port from China and the boats full of Canadian resources float back to pay for them. Debt addicts, extractors, bankers, pollution, climate change, species extinction, starvation and billionaires all connected in the vast matrix of global consumer capitalism. Turn on, tune in, drop out - Timothy Leary's sage advice, delivered in the psychedelic 60's - is still good advice today.
