It's Always Too Early...?

         More than occasionally, reports on horrific homicide or massacre taking place in public or schools occur in the news. I saw on the news the other day that a drunk guy stumbling across someone's yard was shot by this person, who then claimed that he acted in self-defense. It was then that I became aware of such a convenient stand-your-ground law, stating that a person may use force in self-defense when there is a reasonable belief of a threat, without any obligation to retreat first. In some cases, it states further, a person may use deadly force in public areas without a duty to retreat. Widely adopted as so-called "Stand Your Guard", "Line in the Stand" or "No Duty to Retreat" laws in the United States, they are quite confusing to me. What if there are kids playing in the yard of someone's who doesn't want them there? Is it right that this person would have the right to shoot them if he so please, if he perceived them as a threat! So ferocious yet common as it was, it's hardly shocking to me that another massacre has occurred.

         Such is my cynical train of thought in the aftermath of America's latest episode of dreadful, senseless mass slaughter. As gun control is still a controversial debate, while now and then after such atrocities, supports for the tougher gun control laws and even calls for the total abolishment of the right to bear arms' law might spike, but eventually cool usually. Seeming to culminate in nothing changed as it does, I'm not sure whether this sort of brutalities will permanently vanished, or becomes yet another incident in the legacy of stunning gun violence. It's always too early to talk about gun control when there are still popular thoughts supposing what has happened was just one bad case out of a hundred good of the outgrowth of lax restrictions. Except when it's too late for the victims.

Brand Names on the Wane

Do you think brand names will still be popular in the future?

            I believe brand names will recede in importance in the foreseeable future. Though the number of brands may fluctuate, arising from the closing down of one company and the establishing of another, it will decrease in the long run.

            Brand names affiliate themselves strongly with their own products in order to represent their high qualities and fashion. Normally when the price of merchandise escalates, the demand for them plunges. As for the extravagant brand, on the contrary as we all know, the higher the price, the more we purchase, as we tend to show off the external adornment of lavishness or are falsely induced to buy expensive but plausibly good-quality things. But this doesn’t hold true now in the rough time. Not since the Great Depression in 1930’s have the condition of financial been so bad. We have undergone crises such as subprime mortgage and European debt for the past five years. Now people are generally only willing to buy basic pieces of clothing to replace the worn out ones in their wardrobe

            On the other hand, brand is to the goods what trust is to the bank. If the banking industry’s credibility is shot, and without trust the business is doomed to crumble. Along with the rise of China, companies with reputable brand have moved their manufacturing line there, causing the quality of clothes, shoes and many other things to decline and leading the case of food produced with scandalous additives. Like the banker failed to justify the confidence of his clients in him, the reputation of the brand has been thereby dented.

            Despite the fact that factors unknown can be seen for the blips on the path of decline, which we cannot possibly predict, the popularity of brand names is on the wane.