The Burner buys a lot of stuff–little of it is really useful–and TB is not alone, judging from this list of Things Americans Spent $10.7 Trillion On In 2011.
Here are three egregious examples:
Easter: $16.8 billion (National Retail Association)
Ringtones: $5 billion worldwide (NY Times)
Credit Card Late Fees: $18 billion (RK Hammer)
So if people would just go to church for Easter and give up on the hams, the hunts and the Peeps, 840 million people could have access to clean drinking water and prevent about 1.5 million deaths (figures from charity: water). Doesn’t that seem like a better celebration of Jesus?
Also notable is that children are 17.5% more important that our lawns. We spend $47 billion (IBIS) on child care and $40 billion on lawn care (Bloomberg).
(Source: Mental Floss)
