Holding Marketing to a Higher Standard

As I watched this morning, on the "news," about former. Sen. Edwards extra marital affair I had a thought: When our politicians cheat and lie we get really upset with them. Even if it's only in their personal lives. They're not taking money behind our backs and legislating our money away from us. They're not telling us their bill does one thing when it's actually the first step toward fascism. They're cheating on their wives. They're lying about their life experience.

But, when a company lies to us we go unphased. We actually let their excuses go to work in our minds.

Remember the lead paint thing? It hasn't been very long. Fisher Price, Mattel, etc. Do you still buy toys from these companies? If you collectively said no then I know you're lying. They're still selling lots of new toys on the promise that they've stopped. And I'm sure they have.

So, of course, your children are safe. Lead paint is the only hidden danger a toy can have. In case you don't click links: That was sarcasm.

I'm going to make a very strong statement: The companies which recalled, voluntarily or not, toys with lead paint: Those companies should go out of business. This should happen because we consumers should act in our best interest to punish these companies and put fear in the rest of producers. Fear of deceiving a powerful consumer base.

We won't though. And because we won't:
* Our products are made in other countries. Do you care about American labor? Don't buy things from other countries. It has an effect.
* Sometimes using what is essentially slave labor.
* Our products are often made cheaply, with safety as a secondary concern where it's not legislated.
* We need lemon laws. Since we won't act to protect ourselves from complex products which are unapparently junk the Government has to give us laws letting us sue when we've been had.
* We need anti trust laws. Want to know the efficient way to kill a monopoly? Stop buying their products. Most of these monopolies make new products or unnecessary products.
* Our producers lie to us readily on national television. When they're caught lying they apologize quietly on the news. I see no Mattel ads apologizing for lead paint.


The free market and capitalism has been entrusted to us to watch over and we've sold it to marketing departments. Many with much more psychological knowledge than myself will tell us we can't help it. Frankly, I don't care if we can help it. It's still our fault. We're still paying for it.