American Lifestyle: Exporting Fast Food and a Side of Sloth

The American LifeStyle Is Now An Export Product

Dec 30, 2024

Intro: The American Diet: An Export of Chaos

“The only thing that ever consoles man for the stupid things he does is the praise he always gives himself for doing them.”
—Oscar Wilde

The American lifestyle—defined by excess, credit addiction, and indulgence—has become one of the country’s most profitable exports. But what exactly are we exporting? A diet of fast food, financial recklessness, and a lazy dependence on convenience. And it’s catching on like wildfire in developing nations, pulling them into a vortex of poor choices masked as modernity.

India: A Case Study in the Spread of American Excess

India, once a bastion of conservatism, has been seduced by the siren song of the American way of life. The number of Indians earning over $250,000 has doubled in just a year, creating a newly minted middle class eager to mimic Western habits. The results? Coffee shops and fast-food joints like McDonald’s, Domino’s, and Subway are mushrooming. Luxury nightclubs and high-end gadgets are suddenly must-haves.

Credit cards, once taboo, now proliferate. Citibank offers instant loans, feeding the burgeoning culture of debt. The shift is stunning—once a nation of savers, Indians are plunging into a lifestyle that demands spending beyond their means.

Cocaine and Caffeine: The New Status Symbols

Cocaine, priced at over $100 per gram in a country where many earn just $1 a day, has emerged as a status symbol. It’s a shocking indicator of how deeply the American ethos of indulgence has seeped into Indian culture. Pair that with skyrocketing coffee consumption—another hallmark of American influence—and you have a recipe for a society chasing chemical and psychological highs.

Fast Food: A Global Epidemic

Fast food isn’t just a convenience—it’s a weapon. Its addictive nature and affordability make it the ultimate tool for cultural colonization. Across Asia, from India to China, burgers, fries, and pizzas have become symbols of progress. But this “progress” comes with clogged arteries and rising obesity rates.

Credit: Invisible Chains of the New Era

The explosion of easy credit has fueled the madness. In Mumbai, real estate prices have skyrocketed over 100% in less than two years, thanks to loose lending. Similar to U.S. margin trading, a system allows people to buy stocks with just 20% down, amplifying risk to unsustainable levels. It’s financial Russian roulette dressed up as opportunity.

The Global Americanization of Laziness

The core export, however, is not just junk food or credit—it’s the American mindset of shortcuts and entitlement. The desire for instant gratification has obliterated traditional values like hard work, saving, and restraint. Across the globe, societies are trading centuries of wisdom for a seat at the table of modern debt and indulgence.

Invisible Chains: The Global Debt Trap

The concept of “keeping up with the Joneses” has gone global. Whether in Mumbai or Shanghai, people fall for the same trap: debt disguised as freedom. Many fail to grasp that these invisible chains are designed to keep them enslaved forever.

The question remains: will these nations wake up in time to reject this hollow promise of prosperity? Or will they, too, become consumed by the cycle of debt and decline that now defines the American lifestyle?

Conclusion: American Lifestyle

There is one somewhat bright spot here. Entrepreneurial individuals can start preparing themselves for a new big business opportunity in credit counselling, and debt management will emerge. In the end, though many Jobs are being exported to these nations from the West, the smart individual with vision can leapfrog ahead and be ready to offer services that no one has dreamed of yet.

These chaps will miss managing the credit they are being given; hence, like the West, credit counsellors, debt reduction services, debt consolidation services, psychological counselling, etc., will be in huge demand. Another bonus is that individuals here always think that services offered by the West are better. So, if a Westerner combined with an Easterner to open one of these services, the profit potential could be huge.

Emerging Markets: Growing Demand for Credit & Debt Services Presents Profit Potential

However, remember that this will not happen tomorrow but something already underway, and the trend is gathering momentum quickly. Investors willing to take risks should study these emerging markets and look for companies benefiting from this trend. As with any investment or business, one must be ready to explore the companies to which one will deploy capital. If you are considering opening a business, visiting the country and making connections would be prudent; the key always starts small.

Final Thought:
Time, the ultimate teacher, will reveal the answer—but not before it kills all its students.

The world values the Seer above all men and has always done so. Nay, it values all men in proportion as they partake of the character of seers. The Elgin Marbles and the decision of John Marshall are valued for the same reason. What we feel in them is a painstaking submission to facts beyond the author’s control and to ideas imposed upon him by his vision. So with Beethoven’s Symphonies, with Adam Smith’s ”Wealth of Nations” — with any conceivable output of the human mind of which you approve. You love them because you say, ”These things were not made; they were seen.”

John Jay Chapman 1862-1933, American Author