Ever looked at old TV programs or films? Next time have a quick look at how much “stuff” there is in the background, or lack of it. What quality?

Simple linoleum floored kitchens with laminate worktops and maybe a blender or a fridge and if you where lucky a freezer. As the Monty Python Yorkshire man might have said “Luxury! We used to dream of having a kitchen”

The bottom line is a generation or two ago people owned less. Poverty wasn’t just the reason. We own more because manufacture and the rise of media and electronic advertising has a lot to do with it as well.

Fact is that in the West we ain’t never had it so good.  Disagree?  How many albums have you got in your mp3 collection?  National average in the UK is 178. Did your parents (or grandparents if you where born in the eighties or later) have 178 vinyl records lying about? Did they spend that much cash on entertainment?

Lets look at income, more specifically the disposable part. In the 1960s people spent sizable portions of their money on necessities such as housing, food and had relatively little disposable income.

Modern production techniques not only mean that a wider variety of food has become more plentiful, it has also become cheaper in comparison to incomes. There is this nifty tool called the CPI, consumer price index. We can use it like this:

In the sixties a chicken in the US cost 60c. In 2007 a chicken per lb cost $1.03. However if we inflation adjusted the price from the 60s it should in 2007 have cost $4.74 – three times as much.

If all food where like that, and they are, what would be left over from your income if you spent three times more on food?

See what I mean with you ain’t never had it so good?

So why don’t you feel like it? Why do you feel relatively worse of when you are actually relatively better off?

Mind mistakes.

More specifically syllogistic errors of reasoning.  In the advertisers toolkit there are many ways of convincing you to buy something. None so insidious as the mind mistakes, which address your logic and make you confuse your needs with your wants.

Many people say “Its logical” when what they actually mean is something seems self-evident to them. Logic has rules and structures and one of them is the syllogism.

How does it work?

Well I have two statements and that leads me to infer a conclusion.

An old Greek example.

• Statement: Man is mortal.
• Statement: The king is a man.
• Our conclusion: The king is mortal and will one day die.

Now on to that little mistake.

• Statement: All Cape Townians are chilled.
• Statement: Joe is from Cape Town.
• Our inferred conclusion: Joe is chilled.

We cannot make any valid conclusion from this. The error is that the first statement is not correct. We cannot state ALL Cape Townians are chilled. (only SOME).

But the structure and form is there – and copy writers use this everyday.

“This car is the best there is because you can get it on low instalment payments.”

These mistakes work by leading the consumer to think through what appears to be sound or true reasoning to a certain predetermined conclusion.

The series of connected ideas however are seemingly stated correctly but have slight underlying flaws.

And so you take that disposable income and worry about wrinkles you have not yet got and that only a specific cream will prevent. All the while being told by  a genetically good looking actor /actress that you need it because “Your worth it”.