America’s Debt vs. Amazon Prime Day: An Epic Rant

Amazon‘s “Prime Day” happened earlier this week, and everyone fell for it.

Consoomers spent $12.7 Billion ever-loving dollars over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday, which was record-breaking for Amazon. 375 million items were sold during Prime Day 2023, up from 300 million the year prior.

It’s worth mentioning that Amazon sellers often boost the prices of their goods just prior to Prime Day to make the sale seem better than it actually is.

Consider also the 300 million units from last year accrued over the course of TWO Prime “Days” (July 12th-13th, 2022 and October 11th-12th, 2022).

Prime Day is billed as a “48-hour event”. They push it as if it’s some kind of national holiday, but it’s just a sale, people. (And, to point out the obvious, can one call it a “day” if it’s over the course of two days?)

So July 11th-12th, 2023, a seemingly random Tuesday and Wednesday chosen by Amazon this year, was not only the “biggest Prime Day ever,” but also the “single largest sales day in company history”.

Why such a huge boost?

Surely to achieve these sales results there was some kind of new zeitgeist taking over the country on the level of Beatles-mania, right? Some “perfect storm” of new and groundbreaking products and interests colliding in some unprecedented, lightning-in-a-bottle way?

Some “gotta-have-it” that everyone simply couldn’t do without? Some crucial game-changer upgrade to something everyone already has? Some toy that will make-or-break Christmas if it were to tragically sell out? Some Black Friday-like doorbuster stampede for the newest Nintendo console or iPhone, or some kind of second coming of the Pokemon craze going on?

No.

So what the heck did Americans piss away their money on?

Yes, the number one thing sold was CAT TREATS. Not even cat food, which would at least be a minor necessity for cat owners. Treats. This alone makes me want to punch just about every American I see today in the face.

If there’s enough cat moms out there to necessitate that this particular brand of cat treats would hit #1 on the entire website, something’s seriously wrong with this country and its priorities. BILLIONS of dollars were spent on DENTAL HYGENIC CAT TREATS, a near-useless perishable good. Let that sink in.

Amazon Fire sticks are showing up in clearance aisles and even garage sales these days. So many Boomers and Millennials bought them, they’re already a saturated market. Or one would think.

So why would the existing installbase want to upgrade to this particular model so badly that they’d spend billions to gobble them up?

Laziness. (It’s Alexa-enabled so you can talk to the remote.)

Yes, rubes keep buying Alexa-enabled devices despite there being clear information that, even if you opt out from the anti-consumer spyware presets, these “smart” devices can and will be used to actively spy on you.

This smert device is fully capable of monitoring your activities and listening to your private conversations, sending them to Amazon–and then Alphabet–for big data marketing and social sorting purposes. If you don’t think your government will use this information to at least help Gerrymandering, you’re sorely mistaken.

And that’s not even getting into all the absurd and humiliating advertisements you’ll be forced to sit through when you’re just trying to sit down and stream a simple TV show.

But what really kills me is that consoomers spent billions on these sticks even though most who bought them already own a perfectly functional Fire stick and half a dozen alternative devices that do the exact same thing, such as a Roku or any semi-modern video game console, or the fact that they could simply stream on another device they already own, such as your average 20-year old laptop or tablet.

And for what? More Disney+ Star Wars content?

But Amazon’s little scheme clearly works because people prove time and time again they are sheep. They’re suckers.

I predict yet another “upgrade” later this year on the second Prime Day, which should be landing right around October. I guess time will shortly tell if the consoomers fall for the ruse yet again.

Are there really so many pro triathalon atheletes in the U.S. that they feel drinking a glass of water alone can’t hydrate or energize them fast enough, to the point that they need to boost themselves with electrolytes?

Know what this reminds me of?:

Call me crazy, but I have a hard-freaking-time believing we need billions of dollars-worth of BRAWNDO sitting in U.S. household kitchen cabinets.

Coming in fourth and fifth is more household surveillance, helping to further build out a robust and unprecedented spy infrastructure the likes of which the CIA couldn’t have dreamed of just ten years ago.

And a dishonorable mention to…

People gleefully spent $200 USD a pop on Apple-branded headphones during Prime Day as the seventh highest selling item. Why? Because Apple removed headphone jacks from iPhones, and they knew people would be stupid enough to accept that change.

And because people would rather pay boutique prices to listen through Brand than find a cheaper pair of Bluetooth headphones, these things sell like gangbusters.

And so the dust of the first of two Amazon Prime Days has finally settled, and all I see is a wasteland, a bunch of junk that will wind up in garage sales and garbage heaps. And that wouldn’t be so terrible a problem if it weren’t for…

Debt & Inflation

You knew this was coming, right?

On 6/2/2023, US household debt was $31,467,099,921,028.51. But look at it now, just 40 days later (highlighted in red).

That’s right, after Prime Day, personal household debt climbed to over $32-and-a-half trillion USD.

Congratulations, America! You spent $1,075,222,872,371.09 on your credit cards in forty freaking days.

I have a hard time finding sympathy for a population that pisses away money they don’t even have on useless garbage.

But maybe the writing’s on the wall. Maybe, as fiscally-irresponsible as it may be, they’re spending on one last hurrah before their student loan debt starts up again in October.

And then there’s inflation to consider, which has dramatically affected household costs and rent. Along with the costs of food, travel, gas, and everything else.

How are people spending so much money on cat treats when they might need to be stocking up on actual human food to survive potential inflation rampancy, or weather another supply shortage? I’m going to do you a favor and drop this right here.

The bottom line on the chart to the left is how household income has trended since just before the year 2000.

And the top line is how much rent costs these days. The two have never been so disparate.

Want a huge monthly raise? Pay off your debts. And cancel all those garbage streaming services instead of paying money to people who hate you. Then stop pissing away your money on Shiny New Thing and maybe our country won’t be underwater anymore.

I am debt-free. It wasn’t easy, but it was worth it. One of the best things I’ve ever done.

So I pray for the people who contributed to Prime Day with money they couldn’t afford to lose, pray that they are able to put these types of purchases into perspective and learn a little impulse control.