I’m going to talk about Consumerism, This

term can refers to either the accumulation of

things, consumption of goods and services we
consider not essentials or the political and
financial system which promotes the
competitive acquisition of wealth like a sign of
status and prestige inside a social group.
Nowadays it seems that the word
consumerism involves a negative idea. It
refers either to the excess of consumption or
to the unnecessary consumption.
I have no doubt we live in a consumerism
society, however, from fifteen years ago until
the present day consumerism is like a line
that you can’t find the end. Everyone in the
world is a consumer person. People consume
depending on how much they earn, since we
get up until we go to bed. We sleep in a
mattress which brand is “flex” or we eat the
jam that we like. We consume the toothpaste
that our dentist recommend us and we wear
clothes that a big and Known company (like
Zara, for instance) manufactures to everyone
in the world because we want to be
fashionable. We travel in the car we have just
bought and that needs petrol to work, up to
the whim that we buy, when we finish to work,
after a hard day because we feel better and
happier. However, we know we don’t need it.
I mean, the consumption is associated to the
daily life of population. The problem is that in
the last fifteen years the society has suffered
changes. These changes have transformed
people that now are consuming without any
limits. Maybe it has been produced since the
financial sectors like publicity, banks, etcetera
are selfish.
Now, there are people that have got a false
high status, this is the reason why people live
over their possibilities. They want to look
richer, consuming over reasonable things and
consuming things that they don’t need to.
Approximately in the fifties, there were not
too many people who were lucky and could
buy a car. These people, (probably our parents
or grandparents,) used to buy a car that they
could afford.
Nowadays, we don’t agree if we only buy a
useful car, we prefer to purchase a luxurious
car that we know we will have to do a big
effort to pay it; with this example, you can see
we don’t look for a basic necessity, but we
look for goods really pleasant for us and it
shows to the society the true or unreal status
we have.

Therefore, the same things that happen with

cars, happen with houses, restaurants,
clothes, travels...(and with everything)

On the other hand, consumerism affects

children too.
Kid´s markets are enormous and there are
many products towards children. In my
opinion , they are being increasingly
influenced by commercialism ,and they are
also major targets for television advertising.
People think we have lost the values like
citizens. To some extent, it has been caused
by consumerism because every time more and
more, we aren’t satisfied with our properties
transforming us in greedy people.
I would like to finish my speech with a few
lines of an old song from Depeche Mode
called Everything counts:
The grabbing hands grab all they can
All for themselves- after all
It´s a competitive world
Everything counts in large amounts.