Reply to Wow the lack of financial education in this country is staggering

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Debt and consumerism is pushed on us just like fast food and sports gambling. I refuse to get any store credit card. I just don’t see the point, but clearly people do it and carry a balance otherwise TJ Maxx and Ulta wouldn’t push it every time you bought something in the store. There are industries in this country that profit solely on the fact that a sucker is born every minute. [/quote]

I moved to the US 2 years ago. I got a first glimpse of consumerism when I was watching a cartoon with my kiddo and there was a commercial that was telling kids "tell your parents you want blah blah..." I was like wow lol [/quote]

I have a buddy who works at a European PE firm that owned one of the European high-end stroller companies (Bugaboo maker I think who was/is Dutch).

He said that you have to analyze the US market completely different from all other international markets...especially Europe.  In Europe, a family will buy one of these $1,000 strollers and beat the shit out of it until all the kids are out of strollers and then look to resell it.

In the US, a family will buy three of these strollers...not because they have more kids...but because they keep one on the porch, they keep one in the car so they don't have to be bothered with folding the one on the porch, they will keep one at Grandma's house so they don't have to take the one out of the car and put it back in each time the kid is with Grandma, etc.

The same markets in the US are 2x - 3x the size per capita they are everywhere else (especially in the luxury markets).[/quote]

I agree generally about the inescapable marketing drumbeat that we are constantly subjected to in the US. We lived overseas with our kids for years and was shocked by it when we returned to the US.

However, given this unprecedented barrage of ads aimed right at us, I think we do better than expected as a society. Not great but could be worse.

Who among us owns three $1k strollers? We own one $200 stroller. [/quote]

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