Monday, June 1, 2009
PetroChina
Chinese petrol corporation PetroChina's market values reached $336 billion on May 22 2009, exceeding briefly this day for the first time the market value of leading Exxon Mobil Corp. Good news for China!
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood
This award winning documentary is about the influence of the children on the consumption.
“A cri de coeur on behalf of people too young to suspect how their ‘share of mind’ is being jealously divided. . . . Linn does a fine job of exposing the wickedness of preying commercially on the young.”
–The Wall Street Journal
"A measured, but ultimately devastating, critique of consumerism and American childhood.”
–Mother Jones
In Consuming Kids, psychologist Susan Linn takes a comprehensive and unsparing look at the demographic advertisers call "the kid market," taking readers on a compelling and disconcerting journey through modern childhood as envisioned by commercial interests. Children are now the focus of a marketing maelstrom, targets for everything from minivans to M&M counting books. All aspects of children's lives—their health, education, creativity, and values—are at risk of being compromised by their status in the marketplace.
Interweaving real-life stories of marketing to children, child development theory, the latest research, and what marketing experts themselves say about their work, Consuming Kids reveals the magnitude of this problem and shows what can be done about it.
Some Facts:
From 1992 to 1997, the amount of money spent on marketing to children doubled, from $6.2 billion to $12.7 billion.[i] Today they are spending at least $15 billion.
Children influence purchases totaling over $600 billion a year.[ii]
Children spend almost forty hours a week outside of school consuming media, most of which is commercially driven.[iii]
The average child sees about 40,000 commercials each on television alone.[iv]
65% of children eight to eighteen have a television in their bedroom as do 32% of children two to seven[v] and 26% of children under two.[vi]
The marketing industry has found that babies are requesting brands as soon as they speak.[vii]
In 2002, McDonald’s spent over $1.3 billion on advertising in the United States.[viii]
Children are more vulnerable to marketing than adults. Very young children are not able to distinguish between commercials and television programs.[ix]
Until the age about eight children can’t understand persuasive intent–that the purpose of commercials is to entice them into buying the product being advertised.[x]
In 2000, a federal report from the General Accounting Office called marketing in schools a growth industry.[xi]
More children recognize the Budweiser Frogs than Smokey the Bear.[xii]
85% of American parents would like to see children’s television programs commercial free.[xiii]
[i]. Lauro, PW (1999) Coaxing the smile that sells: Baby wranglers in demand in marketing for children. New York Times, November 1, C1+.
[ii]. Packaged Facts. “The Kids Market.” New York: MarketResearch.com, March 2000.
[iii]. Roberts, DF et al (1999) Kids & Media @ the New Millennium. Menlo Park, CA: The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
[iv]. Kunkel, D. (2001) Children and television advertising. In D.G. Singer & J.L. Singer (Eds.), The handbook of children and media. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 375-394.
[v]. Roberts, 1999.
[vi].Rideout, V.; Vandewater, E.;and Wartella, E. Zero to Six: Electronic Media in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers and Preschoolers (Melnlo Park: CA: The Henry F. Kaiser Family Foundation, 2003) pg. 5.
[vii]. Paul Kurnit quoted in Duncan Hood, “Is Advertising to Kids Wrong? Marketers Respond,” KidScreen, November 2000, 16.
[viii]. “100 Leading National Advertisers,” Advertising Age, 74 (25) 23 June 2003, 2.
[ix]. Atkin, C. (1982) Television Advertising and Socialization Consumer Roles. In D. Pearl (Ed.), Television and Behavior: Ten Years of Scientific Progress and Implications for the Eighties. Rockland, MD: National Institute of Mental Health, 191-200.
[x]. Kunkel, D. (2001) Children and Television Advertising. In D.G. Singer & J.L. Singer (Eds.), The handbook of children and media. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. 375-393.
[xi]. Shaul, MS. Public Education: Commercial Activities in Schools. Report to Congressional Requesters. Washington, D.C.: United States General Accounting Office, 2000.
[xii]. Lieber (1996) Commercial and character slogan recall by children aged 9 to 11years: Budweiser frogs versus Bugs Bunny. Berkeley, CA: Center on Alcohol Advertising.
[xiii]. Lake, Snell, Perry, and Associates. Television in the digital age: A report to the Project on Media Ownership and the Benton Foundation, December, 1998. Susan Linn ©2004
Note: Sorry about the slovakian subtitles but this is the only full version of the documentary I could find. If you find the link without subtitles please let me know.
Freud&Consumerism: The century of the self-2
This part of the documentary is called "Engineering of the Consent".
Again, Frued's ideas are explicitly used to prove how masses are controlled.
Through the middle of this chapter of the documentary you can see the shocking similarity between Guatemala (so called back than "Banana Republic") and Iraq both of which have suffered from the acts/lies of "democratization".
If you are interested in how people are turned into modern consumers instead of modern citizens, don't miss this part of the documentary!
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Marx & The Mortgage Crisis
One major actor of the crisis is the credit share of the private investments banks in the Wall Street. The crisis is originated from the fact that more and more householders were created by the low mortgage interest rates. However after the safe primary mortgages had met the demand exactly, investments bankers wanted the gain more profit from the mortgage system. This brings out the sub-primary mortgages, which aimed the relatively lower class people who ended up in defaults. Not being recognized as a serious problem at the first stages, a whole series of defaults followed those. As a result of this, the capital pool of the investments banks couldn’t receive any cash inflow. “But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons - the modern working class – the proletarians.” These financial weapons as Marx proclaimed created a class of people who all obliged to pay their monthly payments to make the rich investors and Wall Street even richer. The fatal mistake was to introduce mortgages that requires no down payment and many other attractive characteristics that attracted low-income “risky” population.“It ... has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous cash payment.” The mortgage system was definitely a unique way to make money out of waiting capital which also stimulated with highly-leveraged trades –that created virtual billion-dollars in the market from which we are currently suffering.
The demographic shift towards home ownership followed by the decrease in the state-owned rented housing since the year 1979 also played an important role for the crisis environment. This trend definitely contradicts with Marx’s idea of centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
If the mortgages are viewed as the products of the financial system, it is easy to realize that there occurred an overproduction which ended up in a gap between the supply and demand. This is the main cause of the sudden decrease in the housing prices in the US. This is simply the crisis of overproduction: “There is too much civilization, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce.” The whole idea behind the growing trend of the investment banks via leverage is the dark consequence of this overproduction. Without having a good understanding of different classes’ relationship with the economics, this gap played a role of catalyzes. Investors created future-defaults from the people –not surprising though as Marx stated “Production not only creates an object for the subject but also a subject for the object.”
Competition in the market also contributed to the crisis. Some banks feared that the big ones would crush them my using the profits gained from lends given to works so they jumped into consumer lending. However one can find the trails of this mistake back in years 1980s, 1990s; and 2000s, especially in the deregulated financial world, provoked wild profit-driven excesses and corruption (the stock market “bubble” and then the real estate “bubble”). The natural result of competition is the accumulation of capital in a few hands, which is the most frightening type of monopoly, said Marx. This also holds for the recent situation as the capital is gathered in the hands of some which later faced with bailouts.
Written the Communist Manifesto nearly 160 years ago Marx has detected the crucial points of the relation of the society and the capitalist system, reasons of crisis and industrialization.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Freud&Consumerism: The century of the self-1
"This series is about how those in power have used Freud's theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy." - Adam Curtis
Consumerism = happiness + consumption + purchasing material possessions
An excellent mirror to the darkest secrets of consumerism that we are facing today.
Some quotes from the documentary:
"So why don't we use propoganda in the times of peace. It was a bad word as the Germans used it. So we used the word 'Public Relations' instead. "
"..most dramatic experiment was to persuade women to smoke...We were losing half of our market because there was a taboo for woman not to smoke in public..April [the first psychoanalist in the US] said that cigarettes were the symbol of penis and male sexual power and if he could find a way of idea to challenge that power than the woman would smoke because than they'd have their own penisses."
"Torch is freedom."
"The idea that smoking made woman freer is actually irrational. But it made them feel more independent."
"People are engaging themselves emotionally or personally to the product or service. You think you need a piece of clothing but you feel better with the piece of clothing."
"What the manufacturers were fearing was overproduction. At some point people might have enough goods and simply stop buying. Up to that point the goods were sold to the masses in the basis of need."
"We must shift the americans from the needs to a desire culture."
"Transfer people into constantly happy walking machines; machines become the key to the economics progress."
"Democracy was turned into a feel-good-medication."
Watch this video if you want to learn how the world economics is centered in consumption! Many ideas expressed on the documentary may not be new to many but it will enlighten the prior-knowledge about the consumersim. Other episodes are on the road..
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