The Land of the Fee

America is now the land of the fee. Not the free, I did not make a typing mistake, I mean fee. Have you not noticed how everything now has additional fees. The airline industry is the most notable - luggage fees, charging for meals, better seats, blankets, using toilets, pillows, and sometimes even for using credit cards to pay for your tickets. Other companies want to charge us for paying our bills online or using our debit cards. Fees to feed their ever growing coffers.

I prefer to be charged a specific price and know what I am getting. I do not want to bargain. I do not want added anxiety in my life because if I do not pay a fee I am going to to get lesser service or be treated more badly by the provider - or not know what I am getting. Why would I?

I learned long ago nothing is ever really free, and now it seems like everything can be better for an additional fee. Or simply paying more.

Everything costs more these days. (Bought gas lately?) Why is that? Are we all getting paid more money? I do not think so. I am thinking those who already have a lot of money are just transferring more among themselves. They skin us while skimming as much off the top as they can. The rich are getting richer and poor getting poorer, so it has to be something like that doesn't it?

 I really would like someone to explain it all to me. I know I should have studied something practical in school - economics, law, or business. but I didn't. I chose and still do prefer art. I do not prefer being subjected into a forced poverty over increasing fees and prices when there is no value added service. In fact paying more for less. Soon I'll paying a lot for nothing - though sometimes I think that is the case already here in the land of the fee.

Living In the Past

So did you watch the superbowl? Maybe just the ads huh?  The whole superbowl spectacle is just a celebration of living in the past. A big money event groomed for the most wealthy and tailored to make the rest of us pine for Doritos. "Let them eat chips"!

Face up to it football should hardly be called a game. It is a concussion inducing bunch of widely scattered moments in between which nothing happens. The greatest thing in football is the no huddle offense. It will be stopped though because it reduces the amount of time for ads. I have a lot against ads, but have been known to be persuaded by clever ones. Hmmm, none of those this year. I mean the whole idea behind advertising is to make us spend money on things we do not need to keep our economy alive. Oh yes and to help the rich get richer as we go further in debt.

When the world feels they have deluged us with enough ads, they give us celebrity. Madonna! The sound was awful and the performance akin to a badly made spaghetti gladiator film. Madonna is over and living on her laurels. I also bet we could have probably fed a few million people a nice meal for what that show cost. Priorities should endure through time and we cannot let media corrupt them.

So am I a curmudgeon of the highest order? Perhaps. Stop wasting money, stop living in the past, and stop exploiting every last second of time in an effort to persuade me that I too am living the good life. I am not. Are you?

 Okay I do live in the past a bit

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