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Comment by spacehome | Hacker News Reader

The savings rate being low is insufficient to justify your claim that advertising does not create net demand. It's also possible that people choose to work more to afford more goods.

I see Americans working very hard when I feel they would get more life satisfaction out of cutting expenses, primarily the big three: transportation, housing, and food.

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You mean the 3 expenses that are entirely non-optional?

Sure, they're non-optional in the sense that you will almost certainly have to pay some money for them. However, I can readily admit that I spend more on housing and transportation than I need to. Food is less clear; I know I can eat cheaper food, but I don't want to compromise health. Eating out is rarely for the sake of simply getting food, so I don't really count that in the grocery budget. It is entertainment plain and simple which is, by definition, largely optional.

There's wide latitude on how much to spend on those three.

A 5000 sq foot house IS optional. Nothing wrong with a 2000 sq foot place - the rest of the world has to "do" with sub-1000 sq foot apartments.

To your point, some of the biggest advertisers are car companies + insurance companies, banks + credit card companies, and food companies. By taxing advertising, the average American will think 'more objectively' and will cut down costs on transportation, housing, and food.

I would say that a lot of issues could be solved in the US by reducing the amount of sugar in everything and reducing the amount of credit used to buy everything.

Getting people healthier and saving more can never lead to bad outcomes.

> primarily the big three: transportation, housing, and food

You forgot taxes, which for me is larger than transportation, housing, or food and is nearly as large as all three combined.

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