War on the consumer: China's alchemists turn lead into gold while endangering your kids.

The "war" on xmas never was, but the "War on the Consumer" is an annual right of capitalism.

This war consists of: The credit card front, the product front and the rear action: pressuring the consumer to buy.

On the product front retailers and producers have a whole bag of tricks. The most famous is limiting quantity to create artificial shortages. When it comes to gifts, the box that the product comes in is much more entertaining than the gift itself because the product was designed by a committee.

On the credit card front, consumers purchase more than they can afford and thus spend the next half of 2008 paying off the cards and the usury interest. This was once called slavery.

In the rear action consumers are pressured to purchase even more. On the job, you're invited to participate in a gift exchange. Who knows if the gift you purchase will ever be enjoyed, but you must purchase a gift. And, don't think that your children will escape this same pressure at school. Religion will pitch in telling you about the joys of xmas and don't forget to donate to the building fund for the new 12-football-field-size mega church which will be built 20 miles from the nearest member.

In all wars, you put your life on the line. At the big box stores, you'll need a helmet so that if merchandise stacked 50 feet high falls you won't be killed. Wear padding to absorb being hit as you walk down the aisles packed with center displays. Then if you survive, you get to the checkout line where an overworked, minimum wage, starving single mother just had to call for help because the scanner won't scan--the ladies underwear your male neighbor is buying!

Good Grief and Good Luck.

:P

...for all of their products and it ended up being used for all of them. The Chinese did not do that on their own