Affluenza college essay

Affluenza Affluenza is a new epidemic for people and it cannot be cured by any pills or shots. It is an unhappy condition of life styles and is the epidemic of materialism, comsumerism ,and overbuying. This epidemic is caused by dogged pursuit of the American dream. There are many symptoms that indicate you have the affluenza. First is the swollen expectation. If you want to have more dishwashers, color TVs, PCs or you want to have a new luxurious car, but you do not worry about the gas price, that is the beginning of having the affluenza ,and you are actually overbuying. It is principally caused by that they want to own what others own; in another word � keeping up with the Joneses� Second is the shopping fever. In 1998, America has more shopping malls than high schools. For people on average, they spend six hours a week for shopping. Nowadays shopping malls become the community centers of American people. They spend too little time just being with their families, getting to know each other. Shopping is not only in the malls but it is also on the television, the internet , even the planes when we are flying. Third is the chronic stress. People have to work late in order to get more money to support their lives. Getting their homes at night, feeling exhausted, and having to pay the monthly bills would make more stress. According to a man�s word in the video in the class, he said � everything I own owns me� He was stressed because he is controlled by . his stuff that he wanted to own. Fourth is hyper commercialism. Commercials influence people�s buying habits. Most of the people think that if they buy the products in the commercial which is advertising in order to persuade Americans to want more and more material possessions that they do not need, they will be loved and accepted. The commercial makes people�s lives more materialistic. In addition, commercial programming directed toward children has increaded. Market targets mostly are children and most of the children cannot resist the seductive pressure of advertising < www.simpleliving.org >. Those kids are becoming very materialistic. Empowered child becomes the families� problem. Fifth is a rash of bankruptcies. Most of the people are willing to get what they want even though it is difficult. Having at least one credit card and spending more than you can afford it are the most significant reasons of people�s bankruptcies because those people try to carry as much credit card debt as possible. It seems to be easy to obtain the credit card in America by comparing the terms of mortgages in America to those of Europe. Americans can get a thirty-year mortgage with five percent down whereas in Europe it takes forty-fifty percent down and the mortgage must be paid off in fifteen years. Sixth is the feature families More divorces cause more problems. Because after divorce people have to stay in two households instead of a household and they, of course, have to spend more money. Seventh is social scars. The gap between rich and poor people in America is getting more and more wider. The rich people tend to be richer in contrast to the poor people, poorer. The rich people spend more money to buying what they want but some of the poor people cannot even survive themselves and their families. This inequlity is considered the unhappy and unhealthy country. Lastly, the global infection. Developing countries want to consume same as Americans do because they think that Americans have the most comfortable life and American is the prosperous country for them. America seems to be a uniquely American trait because America is the new country comparing to others and America gets rich very quickly. Americans use too many resources than others do and this can be considered the over-consumption and the materialism. America�s prosperity wealth in a capitalist social may cause the affluenza. In addition, American saving rate is four percent whereas Japanese saving rate is sixteen percent. It is very obvious that American people do not realize the importance of saving for the rainy day because the America has the social secure system. That influences Americans� unique buying habits. Furthermore, the boomimg economy and the modern technologies; obviously buying goods on the reliable websites from the internet; in America make Affluenza seems to be a uniquely American trait. While American depression makes it seems as well. In fact, I do not think it is unique for America because many countries have affluenza as well ,but it is not a big topic for them because the amount of the people who have the affluenza is not that much. However, affluenza has some benefits ,though. Affluenza increases many jobs. Affluenza causes high demands so that people have to work really hard in order to get the money to support their demands. It may make the economic growth better because most companies produce efficient products and the product costs are decreased. Therefore, goods can be bought by everyone but it may be a short-term benefit because if people have less demands, it will not work this way. A long-term benefit would be that the rich people give their more money to charities. According to what I have written before, other countries are experiencing this phenomenon. First, the developing countries are facing this epidemic because people in those countries want to have the same lives as the people in the developed countries do especially the richest country in the world; America. Furthurmore not only do the people in the developing countries experience the affluenza, but also the people in the developed countries do experience that. As I have written, it is not the big amount of people in those countries having the affluenza comparing to Americans ,but the same issue is that those people want to buy things to impress other people and ,of course, to keep up with the Joneses. I do agree that neither pills nor shots can treat affluenza but I do not think that affluenza cannot be cured. There are many remedies of this epidemic which are; asking yourselves before you buy something if you really need it; learning how to fix things instead of spending money to new things; joining the buy nothing day; spending more time with your kids and instill in them an attitude of contentment for all they have ,as well as the belief that their joy and happiness come from God, not from a cool bike or the lastest video game; turning off the TV might help because you and your kids can be cut out of the influenced commercial; giving a little job to the kids.