If there is one thing I’ve learned in my communications class this summer it’s that everything we see in mass media, television and magazines specifically, is to get us to buy. Buy, buy, buy, consume, consume, consume. No matter how broke we are, we all want that new trinket, matter of fact we feel entitled to it. We work hard, forty hours a week and some, why shouldn’t we be able to have the car, the clothes, and the products we want. At the end of the day all I want is to pay my rent, car note, and be able to go to the bar have a drink with some friends, and maybe even cop a nice pair of kicks and still have some cash to put aside. But what happens when that’s not the case, when the ends don’t meant? What happens when the money isn’t there but I want that brew or I want those shoes. I go to school, I work, I handle mines, I deserve that shit. Do ‘buy now cry later?’

Living in LA, I look around and I see the way people splurge on the ‘finer’ things, and I think ‘where’s this money coming from?’ Everybody ain’t balling like that. How many people have a Benz or Beamer and still live in an apartment where they pay rent? How many Hondas and Corollas have 22 inch rims, but the driver has no savings? People paying $800 car notes, buying rounds at the bar and have no investments.

I’m guilty of the same ‘buy now, cry later’ mentality. But my spider sense tells me that it’s a dangerous game. Times is rough… I look at gas prices, grocery prices, rental rates, and the cost of purchasing a home, and “the cost of living preposterous.” I see new housing developments with hefty price tags, and I wonder who can afford them. In a recent LA Times article Countrywide home loans reported that the number of people defaulting on their home loans is rising. The number is higher than it was this time last year. I knew it was bad, I sensed it. All that fronting is catching up. Still in denial? Check out this article that talks about the rise in foreclosures in the state. “People have stretched their finances to the breaking point,” it states.

You wouldn’t know just how rough these times are by watching television. No where in our mass media do we see people struggling like most of us seem to be. Why, because they have to make us feel good enough to want to go shop. If everybody stopped and realized just how broke we are, we might just wonder what the fuck is going on and rethink this whole ‘buy now cry later’ mentality. And we might even stop and rethink our leadership who bitch over providing us free healthcare, but have no qualms about spending a billion dollars a day in another country. It’s all mathematics though. There’s only so much of us they can sweep under the rug. Pretty soon we won’t be under the rug, the rug will be on top of us. They’ll make arrangements for us in the disguise of accommodations. For us here in LA who feel the rising cost of rents don’t trip, they’ve got plans for us. Especially those of us on the Westside, we’re not wanted. We’re taking up valuable space, therefore they’re being ‘innovative’ and creating new spaces for us.

All this talk about immigrants taking jobs, I want to know what immigrant has a job that pays a salary anywhere near enough to match the cost of living. I'd guess that we have more in common with immigrants than we do our leaders. They ain't fooling me, my edges are sharp but my ends don't meet- I ain't no square.