Americans Are Money Stupid

Although that comment is not a news bulletin by any means and I have been aware of it most of my adult life it comes into laser-like focus working in any bead and jewelery show. There is an overflowing plethora of cheap, lower grade mostly Chinese-made junk in the form of beads and jewelery findings and some cheap finished jewelery as well as other materials manufactured cheaply. They are also sold cheaply but in such a way as to suggest they are a bargain to the buyer when in fact junk is junk and worth as much. These products are sometimes even misrepresented as containing materials of greater worth than they are actually worth.

This past weekend at such a show this very sort of thing was observed when a fairly unremarkable serpentine material in various configurations was being dogmatically presented to a credulous public as nice jade. This is hardly unique to these shows unfortunately as we see such misrepresentations in the big box stores like Home Depot and Bed Bath & Beyond where inferior products are presented as being of a higher quality of material and/or workmanship than they often are. This is in contrast to Walmart which wastes no time with such grandiose affectations but is nakedly a shameless extension of the Chinese economy. 

Another interesting but obnoxious phenomenon to be seen at these bead and jewelery shows are folks having been conditioned by entire tables covered in cheap bead strands being offered for $3/strand or 70% off their grossly inflated price. That $3/strand price comes out of a strand that the seller has 50 cents or less in which makes that strand nothing more than a cheap bauble. That 70% discount is 70% of what total amount? Out of a 400% mark-up of what its true intrinsic value actually is?

These mindless consumer drones next come into my friend Dave's booth at these shows and see bead strands featuring high quality real stones presented as what they actually are and priced quite reasonably but at prices higher than the cheap Chinese crap. They then throw a fit and leave the booth as if Dave's prices are grossly inflated and are a personal insult to these dolts.

These simple consumer creatures believe that they are getting what economists refer to as marginal utility by receiving extra benefit or utility for the cost of less. Actually, they are paying too much to get even less than they realize they are receiving. At any given time only three numbers really matter: the intrinsic value of a good or service and what it will cost the consumer at a given moment and the difference between the first two numbers. That percentage discount foolishness is all smoke and mirrors designed to separate fools from their money. 


That these shenanigans work so well is all a consequence of the cultural conditioning of the masses to become mindless consumer drones. Part of this conditioning comes in the form of a lack of education about finance and economics prior to and entering into adulthood. More knowledge would lead to less consumerism and a smarter form of consumer populating the marketplace.Part of it is mental-emotional laziness and weakness on the part of the Masses. Another part of the problem is how the Marketplace is set up to manipulate the propensities of people.