I'm impressed.  74 views.  Not one comment.  Evidently my writing is pretty goddamned boring.

So, let's try this: In my inbox this morning, was an email from Ebates breathlessly telling me that Walmart on this day (Black Friday, even though it's only Wednesday) is going to increase (actually they don't increase anything, it's already 4%, but I'm not supposed to notice) my cashback to 4%.  Holy shit!  What they're not telling me, I have sussed, is that if I buy absolutely nothing I don't need (which is almost everything), I will save 100%.  Er... that's a full 96% more than Walmart is offering.  But then, if I don't do what they want, how will I add to the pile of stuff I rarely if ever use and at the same time make the Goddamned Walton family even richer?

And if the Waltons don't get richer, who will provide the money for the politicians who advance the interests of people like the Waltons (don't kid yourself, it's all of 'em) to become elected?  Now there's a conundrum for you.  If I buy stuff from rich folks, I'm simultaneously giving the bastards the ability to buy politicians who will, in turn, write laws that allow the rich to create "barriers to entry" that protect them from competition.  If you listen to the rich, they harp on "free markets."  Except they don't mean free markets, they mean walled markets that belong to them.  So, the rich get richer as the saying goes.

I think for today at least, I'll avoid Ebates and the Walton's marking experts.  It's far cheaper and somehow empowering at the same time.