In Excess We Trust

3 Pages 748 Words

In Liz Spayd’s essay In Excess We Trust, she states, “to be is to consume.” I believe she has come up with some very supportive details for her case, and makes a very good argument about us as American consumers. With the facts that she has presented I would agree with her viewpoints. I myself consume more then I need, and have witnessed many other people guilty of over consuming.
Americans today consume more goods as a whole then we did twenty years ago. We also earn more money per household, which is proven statistically. She examines how the wealthy and poor buy a lot more than what is necessary. Everyone is screaming for more, and sometimes we still cannot get enough. We use our monthly paychecks to buy things we cannot even afford. Like going to the local Best Buy and upgrading your 27” TV to the new 72” Plasma set. This will only take four years to pay off, but having this new TV will make your life so much better. Knowing that Visa will always give you a bigger spending limit so we can go out and purchase the goods we think we need right away, and worry about paying for it later.
When it comes to shopping I can tell you first hand that Americans have a knack for spending money. I know that when I go out shopping I never put a limit on how much I will spend if I find the right items. This is a terrible thing because I probably only use half of the items I purchase. Whether it is clothes, toiletries, or food there is always something that I don’t use. When I went to Old Navy’s clearance sale two months ago I found a lot of items that I just had to have. When I was done shopping I rang up a bill of over $200.00, and I now had 8 new shirts, 4 pairs of pants, and a duffle bag. At the time it seemed that I couldn’t live without them, but now there is six new shirts and a pair of jeans sitting in my closet that still have the tags on them. I know there are other people like me that will not stop at...