I tend to associate brands with corporations. I have found that corporations are pretty much the reason prices have been gouging us to the bone. Corporations have been raking in record profits, handing out insane year end bonuses, and beating us all down with hyper inflated prices, well above a respectable profit margin, and very much outpacing inflation.

All the while, they are not paying a fair share in taxes. Plus a lot of the money they don’t spend on themselves, goes to politicians, to grease the rails, to keep things just as they are.

So brands, to me, represent something I don’t care much for at all. But to some degree you can’t get away from it. The cars we drive, the food/drink we consume, the stores where we buy these things, all corporations with a “brand.”

You can’t get away from it. But I do work at limiting my handing $$$ to them. Most of the time I’d rather go home and have a peanut butter sandwich, rather than grab a burger in town at a corporate fast food joint. If my needs require me to walk into a Wal-Mart (corporate!) I do my damndest to just get the 3-4 things I actually need in there. I truly despise every moment I spend in a Wal-Mart. We generally try to get more of our necessaries at a smaller, local food store. My wife feels exactly as I do.

I don’t wear hats, shirts, or pants, emblazened with corporate logos. I refuse to advertise for them. Now if they wanted to pay me to wear that stuff, we could talk.

Corporate brands are nothing more to me, than artificially created propaganda, intended to get you to associate with their specific, brand. Once you’ve done that, who gets your money? They do.

I ain’t buying it. Fuck ’em.