by Prudence Whitmore

I received a call the other day for a product that I market and sell. The person asked for the price of the object and I told him. He then asked if this was as low as I could go, as someone else was advertising it for a couple of hundred less. I told him that the company itself had set the prices as low as they can go to provide a great product and keep it affordable. I told him, that was against company policy and that person was not only cutting his/her own profit down, but undercutting the other distributors which is not good because some people are depending on it to make a living or help themselves get by. The person listened, then said goodbye, and was obviously going back to the distributor who offered it at the cheaper price. I called the company immediately to let them know what was going on and they said they would take care of it right away.
That made me start thinking about our whole society and just what the lure of ‘cheap goods’ has done to all of us, and why we now need ‘cheap goods’. I wonder if most, or any people know that Walmart as well as other corporations who sell goods cheaply have done to the world.

Walmart itself, as stated in other articles has been responsible for whole good companies going under in the United States by demanding that they sell their products at a cheaper price then they can even afford to make them. This pushed them out of business because they couldn’t compete with the real cheap goods from China or elsewhere.

This also costs lots of American jobs, the very people who are the backbone of the country and who are the ones putting into the system in so many ways. As everyone is aware of, there is a huge multi-wealthy class of people and now a huger mass of poverty stricken and lower class in our country. The middle class which is the backbone of any country has been shrinking even though we look prosperous, everyone is maxed out on credit cards and are losing their homes, those big ‘mansion’s bought on lots of interest and way over what they could afford.

This man who called, clearly shows what has become of the mind-set here, ‘how cheap can I get it”? It has nothing to do with the quality, with the small guys, the distributors and manufacturers of items like this from small companies, and it is this thinking that hurts everyone.
We are used to going to yard sales and even though things are set out so cheap it is embarrassing and clear people are losing money to sell most of what they have. There are those people who want them to go even cheaper, you might as well drop it off at the thrift store and let them make a little bit on it for good causes, then put all that time and effort into getting ready and sitting at the yard sales.

So, what does this say about we, as a people? Could it possibly say that we have lost our values on a personal level, values that are actually ‘worth’ something? Could it say, that as long as we have lots of ‘stuff’ around our houses, that we are blessed and successful. The sad thing is, that most of this stuff is not even recyclable, most has plastic parts that will contaminate this earth and is raping the earth to make this doo-dad. This doo-dad that we will sell at yard sales when we are tired of it, or give it as a present to someone who will do the same, or put it out for the trash.

Does this ‘lack of value’ extend to our relationships with people I wonder? Well, one has only to look at the divorce rate, to see how much we ‘value’ our mates and our lives with them. How many divorces, 1 out of every 2 marriages it used to be. How many of those go on to marry and discard another one and then another, always hoping to ‘get it right’, to find that ‘special one’ for them?

Most of us have been through that, and it is only towards the later years of life we finally get some wisdom, and look back and truthfully say, “I could have worked at that better, I could have taken more personal responsibility and valued the relationship enough to give it more energy”. I am one of those that feel like I failed in that part of my life.

Much has been made about waving the American flag, and being patriots, but the values, that the originators put into our constitution have been lost. Many of us know that the originators of the Declaration of Independence were rich, white landowners, and meant that document for themselves or those like them.

However it was started, the values and the rights put forth must have been guided by the Creator, and most Americans for years have taken the meanings of it to include all people, no matter their race, their culture, their sex or their religions, to have the Creator-given right to health, life, and a pursuit of happiness. As we see now, we have been destroyed from within, as Kruschev said we would. We have not been destroyed however by communism, but by consumerism. Those basic rights have been parlayed into the rights to have the biggest, the best, the most of any country in the world. The lifestyles of the Rich and Famous being put on TV has not been an idle thing, it also has been to make more people desire all of that so ‘they’ can be worthwhile also.
Success as a person these days means ‘how much we have’ not ‘how honorable of a person’ we are.

Sadly, we have lost all the way around. When a person’s self worth is measured in goods, then the powerful and the greedy take full advantage of it, and make, market, and manipulate us, so we want more, and they make more.

The earth has lost, the critters have lost, the people have lost, we are indeed in the time of the seventh fire.

Only a miracle can save all of it now.

Declaration Of Independence - We Are Americans