How Enlightened Consumerism Is Shaping a New Capitalism

October 28, 2023

Considering the extremely painful and disturbing series of events that have occurred throughout the world over the last few weeks, let us entertain something a little lighter, though no less transcendent in nature in regards to our often slow, sluggish push toward a more enlightened evolution.

In our ongoing exploration of the post-Peak Capitalism world, see photo 1, an innocent enough looking collection of ostensibly family-sized snacks (for the context of size only — no relation to one another).

An average assortment of family-sized American snacks

Photo 2 shows a seemingly decent sized bag of Snax Sational Brands Butterfinger flavored popcorn. Surely enough for a a small family or couple to share…

A seemingly family-sized bag of Snax Sational Butterfinger flavored popcorn

What you actually get when you open said family sized Snax Sational bag of Butterfinger flavored popcorn

Photo 3 shows the actual contents of the bag just after opening, without one item yet removed. An environment-killing glazed and inked plastic-foil bag that measures 12 inches high by 5 inches wide contains less than 4 inches of actual product. The rest is pumped in air; empty space.

Clearly this deception does not equate to any sort of Capitalist Crime or what we’ve been calling Criminal Capitalism or Weaponized Capitalism, the most heinous & harmful aspects of the Post-Capitalism world.

But off the top of our heads, what does this blatant trickery & thievery do to the unsuspecting consumer? Definitely disappoints. Makes them feel like a mark, like they got duped and ripped off by @snax_sationalbrands Definitely uninspires & dissuades loyalty to & trust in the brand.

It also is an extreme waste of resources & that much more poison garbage buried in the Earth’s limited landfills.

See.., Post-Capitalism doesn’t always have to be overtly harmful or dangerous to suck. Sometimes it just shows what a**holes people can be & how little respect they have for their customers or people in general.

But the GOOD that will come, IS coming, from all this is that companies & brands who commit to being honest, trustworthy, respecting their customers, their employees AND the environment will continue to take more & more marketshare away from tired old legacy brands like this one (even tho they’re pretending to be “new”) by inspiring trust and loyalty. Admiration even.

In the 21st century, as we continue to define what we want out of New Capitalism, enlightened consumers are making it very clear that we are no longer just buying a product, a brand or a company anymore. What we’re really buying now is an ethos that aligns with our values; a knowing that our money is a powerful force, that can be used to make us feel good or make us feel bad and ripped off.

When we spend OUR money, on something, on anything, be it product, service, donation, we recognize that we can help make the world a better place, or perpetuate just more of the same, or truly destroy the world outright. That choice is one we make every single day, in every single purchase, whether we’re aware of it or not.

Enlightened Consumerism is what we’ve been calling it lately. Conscious Capitalism is an older term and refers more to how we do business. Conscientious Investing, older still, refers to how we invest, as in how we generate Alpha from our own capital, or how we generate a profit from any money we’ve set aside; and it’s all about WHAT we invest in. That’s the “how”. In the simplest terms, Big Oil, Big Pharma and weapons manufacturers are OUT. Electric vehicles and environmentally sound companies are IN. One often hears the term ESG associated with this brand of investing.

Enlightened Consumerism is the same principle. But it levels the playing field. Whether we hurt the world and our fellow man, or help is no longer just for the wealthy. It’s a process that everyone can partake in.

Enlightened Consumerism isn’t a fad. Its not liberal or conservative; not gay or straight. It has no color, no ethnicity, no religion. What it is is the future. Our future. Our children and grandchildren’s future. It’s everybody’s future. And yours truly predicts it’s already one of the fastest growing & hottest trends of the new millennium.

Out Of Control Healthcare Cost As Weaponized Capitalism

October 22, 2023

And then there’s this:

“The price of the lifesaving Covid-19 medication #Paxlovid will more than double in the coming months, drugmaker #Pfizer announced Wednesday. The change in list price comes as the US transitions from a system in which the government purchased the medication and provided it free to everyone to a more traditional commercial marketplace.
“The list price, before insurance, will be $1,390 for a five-day course, Pfizer said. That’s 2.6 times higher than the $530-per-course price paid by the US government, which provided Paxlovid free to patients during the pandemic.
“Covid-19 vaccines also increased in price as they went through a similar transition to a commercial market, rising about fourfold to between $115 to $130 per dose.

Some call it Peak Capitalism. But we’re way beyond that now. Others term it Capitalism Run Amuck. But again, way beyond that. I’ve heard Post Capitalism. Maybe…, but that could be too easily confusing.

I had it the other day…, the perfect term for where we are at this very moment (United States only, for lest we forget, being a new country, we are BEHIND the rest of the Western World in these matters i.e. Free Market Capitalism Versus Social Welfare…) Alas I forgot to make a note of the term I’d concocted. For now, let’s settle on Out Of Control Capitalism, and/or Weaponized Capitalism.

One thing we know for sure from history. It is only a matter of time before the masses that comprise 99% of any nation state’s population, unable to live even the most basic existences of dignity, rise up, revolt and tear the whole corrupt system crumbling down, murdering many a number of the 1% along the way. That’s History 101. This is the WHY behind Europe being so far ahead of us on the Social Welfare and Happiness scales. They’ve already been through this. Many of them multiple times. Let us hope there is something that be done in the form of a compromise between true democracy, social welfare, equality, basic human rights to lives of dignity and our more capitalist leanings.

As always, more later,
Ambassador

HealthcareCosts #healthcare #healthcarecostsareinsane

Aspartame Indicative of the Major Problems Posed By Capitalism

July 14, 2023

Every major news outlet reported in the last hour that “Aspartame Is a Cause of Cancer in Humans, a W.H.O. Agency Says, but may not offer much risk if consumed in small quantities.”

Bearing in mind that we’ve known the first part of this statement for 40+ years, what is so disturbing disgusting and infuriating about the statement as a whole is how transparently it reveals the inherent corruption of late stage capitalism. “Causes cancer, but poses moderate risk if you don’t take much of it.”

Science tells us one thing. Government tells us the opposite. Knowing full well that the very few intelligent consumer population will never fall for it, the majority of consumers will. Because they just cannot bear accepting the reality that the government is not honest, is not compassionate and does not have anyone’s best interest in mind. Instead they exist to do one thing: make as much money for themselves as they can at the expense of every last citizen in the country. It is disturbing to fully accept this reality. But it is essential if a people are ever going to get a government that works for them rather than against them.

We all already know aspartame causes cancer based on the numerous trials throughout the 70s and 80s, but just like it’s predecessor saccharin, big money is secretly and overtly given to congress persons and various government agencies to get its approval to be consumed by unsuspecting uninformed consumers. In most ways, this process is perfectly legal in hardcore capitalist countries, most notably the United States. The bribery is relabeled “lobbying” or “campaign contributions”.

And even now, after even more trials show once again that the chemical is a carcinogen to the human body, the governing agencies still have the heartless audacity to add the phrase “but poses little risk if consumed in small quantities”. Why? Because they’re being paid to do so.

It is some of the worst of human behavior, taking bribe money to knowingly deceive others, potentially causing them cancer down the road just because it’s “legal” to do so as long as you commit perjury a few years or decades later. But that in a nutshell is capitalism. Of course capitalism has its benefits. It’s a phenomenal idea, that kind of freedom. I’ve benefitted from it in business for 40 years as so many others have. But there’s a dark side to it if it’s allowed to get out of hand. Capitalism gone wild yields very little benefit and begins to become the problem instead of the solution.

In the last 10-20 years we’ve begun to see more and more examples of this, which in turn compels the entire populace to become more and more cynical as they realize there are no rules in place to protect them or their family, and no leaders who care about them but instead operate from a strictly self serving capacity only.

The feeling of hopelessness that stems from this form of capitalism is what leads to the cynicism, making everyone even more focused on becoming self serving themselves as they start believing that the society they live in itself truly is a dog eat dog, live and let die world where nobody can afford to even consider the well being of other people except themselves. Nothing good comes from this descent in consciousness. History has shown us how it always ends for these types of societies.

Despite these criminals disguised as government officials and their deplorable behavior, each of us must find in our own way a path to fight these self serving tendencies and cynicism and continue to strive toward helping those around us, service to others being the primary way we will one day achieve an enlightened planetary civilization.

May each of us never lose so much of our soul that we can ever be capable of uttering the phrases “causes cancer” and “but poses little risk” in the same sentence ourselves.

Capital One Bank Uses Zelle To Take Money Out Of Customer Accounts Overnight

March 17, 2023

If you’re looking for a bank for day to day retail banking needs like depositing your paycheck or paying recurring monthly bills, you may want to think again before using Capital One. There has been a growing number of cases reported in 2023 of the bank using the money sending app Zelle to take money out of their customers’ accounts overnight and claim that it’s a glitch in the Zelle app.

It’s a crafty method Capital One uses on the unsuspecting customer. They stick with small businesses or customers that tend to have $50,000 or less in their account, and keep the amounts they steal limited to $500 or less. But compounded by tens of thousands of customer accounts a night, the total amount of money the bank is able to collect amasses to hundreds of thousands of dollars per night.

Some customers may not even notice the money is gone at first. And that’s exactly what the bank is hoping for. But for most working Americans $250 to $500 is a lot of money. Consumer Protection agencies say that so far Capital One only targets customers or businesses who’ve recently sent money to a friend, family member or another business using Zelle; this person is called the Recipient. The Capital One customer, called the Sender, hears back from the recipient that they never received the money. So they contact Zelle, who reports that the money was received and cleared by Capital One bank.

The customer then calls Capital One. What happens next is a circular scheme of never ending phone calls and e-mails with the bank who claims that they see the transaction but aren’t able to verify if the recipient received the money; and due to the terms of service of Zelle they aren’t able to return the money to the sender either.

Recorded calls with Capital One customer service reps reveal that even they are unable to fully understand where the customers’ money is, but they can confirm that the bank did receive the money from Zelle. They also can confirm that the customers’ account has been debited by the amount they sent. Most of the time the customers have already sent the recipient a second payment using a different money sending method like PayPal or Venmo, assuming that Capital One would discover the glitch and refund the first payment to them. Instead the bank continues to claim that “due to the terms of service of Zelle, users are liable for the payments sent using the app”.

This phrase is repeated to the customers ad nauseam by Capital One customer service reps, who themselves aren’t even sure what it means or how it equates to Capital One taking these large amounts of money out of customers’ accounts. They can only see that the customer has paid for the transaction twice, their account has been debited twice and there’s no way to refund the first transaction.

Both customers and Capital One customer service reps remain confused during what usually turns into conversations that last an hour or more. Both can see that the account is missing the money from the first transaction and that the recipient never received it. Both can confirm that Capital One processed the transaction and has the customers’ money. They just can’t figure out why, nor how to retrieve the money in order to refund it to the customer.

What Capital One is doing with the money they’ve kept from these transactions or where it’s gone remains a mystery. But reports of this type are mounting up across the country. Customers are then forced to find an attorney and file a claim against the bank. But most working Americans don’t have the time for that, so they put it off. Capital One is then able to keep the money from their customers’ Zelle transactions without ever sending it to the recipients. Stories like this are beginning to appear more and more frequently about Capital One and Zelle, though in their defense it appears that Zelle is as much a victim of Capital One’s questionable banking practices as their customers.

One thing is sure about these stories. Consumers would be better off not using the Zelle money sending app if they bank with Capital One, or better yet would be safer still if they chose a different bank altogether.

TheTranscendenceDiaries

Category: Consumer Protection

How Enlightened Consumerism Is Shaping a New Capitalism

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