Supply and Demand...

Do you ever walk into a grocery store and get disgusted by the amount of 'stuff' we have access to here? Does it trouble you to pick up a tube of toothpaste, one of 15 varieties of that brand, one of 12 brands on the shelf, stocked at one of three pharmacies at that particular intersection? Do you look out at the world from a thin veil of high-density polyethylene? I feel your pain, your disgust, your sadness that a once lovely patch of shrubbery is now occupied by a completely unnecessary display of cheaply made housewares. There is a solution. Leave America. Leave now, and don't even think about going to another 1st world country, because you'll just find the same thing, only you won't be able to read the price because it will be in pounds or lira or guilders. Why am I bringing this up? I have just attempted to locate Broadway tickets for a show my wife wants to see on her birthday. The are going for roughly $175-$200 apiece. This is after 2 of the 3 'stars' of the original cast have left the show. Some of these are for seats listed as 'partial view'. I wonder how, when visibility is decreased %40, they arrive at a figure which is priced down only %12. But the answer is so simple: supply and demand. You're all buying them. You're buying $200 Broadway tickets, wearing foreign made clothing which you got on sale and still overpaid on, freshened up with $5 antiperspirant containing aluminum and other (un)natural deodorizers, and I won't even comment on the food you've chosen, or on the manner in which it was harvested and processed. Suffice it to say, the only people who are in business making nothing are running the family store, and it's more for sentimental purposes than for financial ones. Someone is buying all of these random products and services. The appetite for industry and production grew from a stench in the nostrils of a priviledged few to a robust and rampant hunger of the masses in our country, and it is still growing, and we are gorging ourselves.
But don't think I'm above all of it. I drive here, sit there, shop there, watch this, throw that away with the best of them. I'm simply a little...put off by it at times. I guess when you get right down to it, I'm still willing to settle for a wallet full of Georges rather than a pouch full of farthings. This has been another superficial dilemma faced by the cultureless megalith that is the United States. Thank you and good night.
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