Living Largely on the Cheap

Knock-offs. In this digital age, they are better than ever. You can get knock-off purses, knock-off gamesystems, and even knock-off cars. Best of all, your neighbors probably won’t even know the difference. They might not even care to investigate. By now, if you have been following my tips and tricks, they think you are the CEO of Wal-Mart. If you actually are the CEO of Wal-Mart, feel free to send some of that cash my way.

Britain has had some TV ads floating around centered around “Knock-off Nigel”, meant to deter people from pirating movies from the internet. That would work fine if your name was Nigel. But I don’t think it is. I bet your something like a Frank or a Cindy. And, as a Frank or a Cindy, you are much more cool buying knock-offs and pirating movies than that Nigel character.

There are many advantages to buying fake stuffs. The obvious, it is cheap. Secondly, you are contributing to worthy causes. Who wants to support those richie riches down at the Prada plant? They’ve already got enough money, selling those over-priced cow-sacks. If you wanted to support the ultra-wealthy, you would pay your taxes.

No, you want to support the underdogs! Hey, they’re just trying to make a living, what are you going to do, swipe it out from underneath them? Knock-offs contribute to 7% of the world economy, that’s more than $350 Billion buckaroos. If you divide that $350 dollars per person in the world, that means there is $50 smackers per person on this planet in fakes. You can’t just pull that income out from underneath people! People gotta eat!

According to the International Chamber of Commerce Counterfeiting Intelligence Bureau (I bet their Christmas parties are a blast!), the U.S. alone ‘loses’ $200 billion dollars a year to counterfeiters. For the U.S., that is roughly $666 per person! That may seem devilish and indicate some sort of ‘evil’ in buying counterfeit, but actually, it rounds up to $667 per person if we say the States have 300 million people. The point of all of this? I don’t know about you, but I haven’t spent nearly $700 dollars last year on fake products. I am not holding up my end of the bargain.

And, if you didn’t spend that much on fake Guccis or knock-off (I would consider the following link ’PG-13′ rated) Male Chastity Belts last year, you’re not doing your part to keep the International Chamber of Commerce Counterfeiting Intelligence Bureau (the ICOCCIB) open. And it is a fine institution, so I hear. Also, every time you see a commercial asking you to sponser a child for $25 bucks a month, just remember: you could have been supporting those children with income they would recieve at the counterfeit plant. There is a chance that you are already buying counterfeit products and you don’t know it. However, you can’t count on this oversight to keep you from contributing at least $600 or $700 to actively seeking them out.

If for some reason your ‘concience’ keeps you from wanting to buy that bag, remember, the Japanese don’t have a problem with it. And, as you may recall, Sweden is in Japan. I don’t know where I’m going with this, but basically, Sweden is cool, counterfeits are cool, and you have to impress the neighbors somehow.

Support America (or whatever country your in), buy counterfeit.