15 Stats That Show Americans Are Drowning in 'Stuff'

Getting kids to clean up after themselves is a rather unpleasant, ongoing struggle for many parents today. If one’s kids are messy, it’s typically assumed that it’s because of a lack of parental will, i.e., that the parents’ failed to discipline their children.

I wouldn’t want to let parents completely off the hook here, but I will say that we often ignore contextual factors that also work against keeping a clean house, such as the busyness of modern life and… the fact that we simply own a lot more stuff than people in the past.

In America, many people spend a good portion of their free time accumulating possessions, and the rest of that time attempting to clean up those same possessions. Those with children spend many frustrating hours trying to coax their children to do the same.

Here are 15 stats gathered by Joshua Becker for Becoming Minimalist that help confirm the suspicion that Americans simply own too much stuff:

1. There are 300,000 items in the average American home (LA Times).

2. The average size of the American home has nearly tripled in size over the past 50 years (NPR).

3. And still, 1 out of every 10 Americans rent offsite storage—the fastest growing segment of the commercial real estate industry over the past four decades. (New York Times Magazine).

4. While 25% of people with two-car garages don’t have room to park cars inside them and 32% only have room for one vehicle. (U.S. Department of Energy).

5. The United States has upward of 50,000 storage facilities, more than five times the number of Starbucks. Currently, there is 7.3 square feet of self storage space for every man, woman and child in the nation. Thus, it is physically possible that every American could stand—all at the same time—under the total canopy of self storage roofing (SSA).

6. British research found that the average 10-year-old owns 238 toys but plays with just 12 daily (The Telegraph).

7. 3.1% of the world’s children live in America, but they own 40% of the toys consumed globally (UCLA).

8. The average American woman owns 30 outfits—one for every day of the month. In 1930, that figure was nine (Forbes).

9. The average American family spends $1,700 on clothes annually (Forbes).

10. While the average American throws away 65 pounds of clothing per year (Huffington Post).

11. Some reports indicate we consume twice as many material goods today as we did 50 years ago (The Story of Stuff).

12. Currently, the 12 percent of the world’s population that lives in North America and Western Europe account for 60 percent of private consumption spending, while the one-third living in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa accounts for only 3.2 percent (Worldwatch Institute).

13. Americans spend more on shoes, jewelry, and watches ($100 billion) than on higher education (Psychology Today).

14. Over the course of our lifetime, we will spend a total of 3,680 hours or 153 days searching for misplaced items. The research found we lose up to nine items every day—or 198,743 in a lifetime. Phones, keys, sunglasses, and paperwork top the list (The Daily Mail).

15. Americans spend $1.2 trillion annually on nonessential goods—in other words, items they do not need (The Wall Street Journal).

As it has been said: we don’t possess things; they end up possessing us. Again, discipline and consistency on the part of parents are certainly needed when it comes to bringing up tidy children. But just as children become easily overwhelmed by too many toys, so also the same applies when they are confronted with a huge mess and told to “clean up.”

Raising children is difficult enough, and parents probably don’t need clutter working against them in this task. If they want tidy children, it's better if they own less stuff.

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Stanford Study: Religious Teens Are Smarter (and More Conscientious and Cooperative)

No one is surprised when teenagers withdraw from their parents’ religious practice. It’s often looked upon as a rite of passage. But, according to a study from Stanford Graduate School of Education no one should be surprised either if their grades suffer. Adolescents who are committed to their religious beliefs do better academically than those who are religiously disengaged.

Why? The research suggests that religious communities help adolescents to cultivate two habits which are highly valued in education: conscientiousness and cooperation. As other scholars have observed:

“Both practices—church attendance and doing well in school— require commitment, diligence, and routine. The ritual practice of rising and going to church or mass, and so forth— whether compelled by one's own faith or one's parents' demands— commits a youth to a practice and routine, a skill that translates into tools needed for academic success”

Surprisingly, sociologists tend to ignore the role of religion in educational success. The author of the Stanford study, however, believes that this is a mistake. “The United States is a highly religious country, and religion is a powerful social force,” says Ilana Horwitz, a doctoral candidate at Stanford. “If we, as education scholars, are trying to understand adolescents in America, we should pay attention to this very important part of their life.”

This echoes the finding of the doyen of American sociology, Robert Putnam, who once observed that “faith communities in which people worship together are arguably the single most important repository of social capital in America... Churches provide an important incubator for civic skills, civic norms, community interests, and civic recruitment”

So why not for adolescents, as well? Half of American teenagers report that religious faith is “very” or “extremely” meaningful to them, and one in three teenagers prays at least once a day.

Horwitz interviewed 2,491 teenagers at public schools aged between 13 and 17. She grouped them in five categories from most to least religious: abiders, adapters, assenters, avoiders and atheists. Abiders attend religious services, pray on a regular basis, feel close to God, and emphasize the role of faith in their daily lives. On the other end of the scale are avoiders— those believe that a God exists but avoid religious involvement and broader issues of the relevance of religion for their life. (The atheists were a special case, as they are few and stigmatized in the US. Their scores resembled the avoiders in Horwitz’s study.)

Abiders, she found, earned significantly better grades on average than the avoiders. Abiders had an average GPA of 3.22, compared with 2.93 among avoiders. “Being religious helps adolescents in middle and high school because they are rewarded for being obedient and respectful and for having self-control,” she commented.

“Generally, kids who are religious drink less, have less sex, and are more closely supervised by their parents,” she continued. “These variables explained some of why religious kids do better in school. But my models showed there’s something above and beyond those factors that the survey data couldn’t explain.”

The answer emerged in face-to-face interviews. In sharing stories about their lives, she found, abiders were much more likely to express conscientiousness and a cooperative disposition than avoiders, who were more likely to be rebellious and lack self-discipline.

It’s important to note that this study show only that religious commitment is associated with academic success – not that it causes it. However, it shines a different light on other research which purports to show that religiosity correlates inversely with intelligence, ie, the more religious you are, the dumber you are. But the question raised by the Stanford research seems to be: so what if you’re so smart if you end up failing because you can't get out of bed in the morning?

We’ll find out. Horwitz’s next project is to see whether her abiders continue to succeed at university.

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The Great Work / Alien Messages C2C April 28, 2018

Justin Deschamps has been a truth seeker all his life, studying physics, psychology, law, philosophy, and spirituality, and working to weave these seemingly separate bodies of information into a holistic tapestry of ever expanding knowledge. In the first half with Jimmy Church , Justin shared the goal of his work - to help himself and others become better truth-seekers, and in doing so, form a community of holistically minded individuals capable of creating world healing projects for the benefit of all life—what has been called The Great Work. Deschamps said his own awakening happened when he was looking to debunk cancer cures and found one that actually worked. At that time, he decided to live his life on "altruistic principles" and become a source and nexus for alternative information.

His podcast and website became the main methods for spreading the ideas that Deschamps was uncovering, but he pointed out that the internet has also become a place of countless false and manufactured sources of information. He believes that there are powers in charge of public discourse who have created a "systematic disruption" of the ability of people to think and discuss issues and ideas, which has resulted in a situation where "we can’t have a meeting of the minds, which is what communication is all about." In answer to caller Charles’ question about what people can do to improve the state of the world, Deschamps suggested that each person should first "get their own house in order" and then "learn how to communicate with people in a respectful way."

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Certified hypnotherapist, abduction researcher and Director of CERO (Close Encounter Resource Organization) Yvonne Smith discussed stories from the last five years of her work as a hypnotherapist specializing in alien abduction. She has seen a shift or "urgency" in the messages received by the abductees from these beings as if something enormous is about to happen. Smith has been regressing and counseling abductees for over 25 years, and is convinced that the abduction phenomenon is real and is caused by some sort of extraterrestrial beings or intelligences because the accounts of her clients are "so startlingly similar."

Since 2011, Smith says that many of her clients have been separately telling her that they are receiving messages from their abductors that "something is coming" and they don’t know what to do about it. Some also see themselves in dreams leading large groups of people. They are told "'you have a job to do,' and when the time comes they will know what to do." The abductees have told Smith that what is coming is not clear, but could be in one of three categories: 1 - A chemical, biological or nuclear attack; 2- Some kind of natural disaster, such as an hurricane or earthquake; or 3 - UFO disclosure in an unusual way which might cause panic and unrest. A caller from Nevada named Bonnie described terrifying experiences involving an evil "doctor" and a strange trip into the desert where she saw a conveyor belt loaded with hundreds of dead bodies.

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Multi-Dimensional Contact / Open Lines C2C April 27, 2018

Bestselling author, internationally known lecturer, minister, counselor, multiple near-death experiencer and UFO contactee, James Gilliland, joined Jimmy Church to discuss his ECETI Ranch (Enlightened Contact with ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) in Washington State where he documents and shares amazing multi-dimensional contact phenomena. Gilliland recalled that he originally found the ranch property after he experienced a series of visions of the place while teaching healing classes in California. Eventually, "through a sequence of synchronistic events" Gilliland says he ended up at what was to become the ECETI Ranch. The area has long been an apparent nexus of paranormal and UFO events.

Gilliland claims that "two ley lines" cross the property and that this contributes to the extreme number of anomalous lights sighted on the land. He says that he has also seen Bigfoot-type entities on at least four occasions, and giant footprints are seen regularly. Some anomalous hair was found, which Gilliland had analyzed. The strands were three-and-a-half feet long and the study indicated that they were "silicon-based." He also believes that there is a great deal of government or intelligence interest in the ECETI property. He stated that he’s "had people here that are part of the secret space program and black projects" and that "they sometimes spill the beans" about secret programs. He stated that everyone is welcome on the property and that "people need to come up to the ranch and have their own experience."

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During Open Lines, Ian called in from New York to relate his out-of-body experience with an apparent alien being. He claimed that he was apparently on some sort of spaceship on the Moon and saw a "little man" in a silvery spacesuit with a silver helmet. He said when the alien being locked eyes with him, he was immediately transported back into his body. Spike in Texas said that when he was young, he was "roughhousing" with other boys and a small metallic ball fell somehow fell out of his head. At the time, he didn’t know what it was, but now thinks it may have been some sort of alien implant. Patrick called in and said he was practically Gilliland’s neighbor at one point, but did not see anything strange at home. He did however, have a clear sighting of a UFO while piloting a private plane in the area. He had to fly around the shiny object in order to avoid a collision.

Albert from California recounted a creepy story of a visit to a haunted location during a film production. On the anniversary of a murder that he was told had occurred in the building, he heard strange and ominous whispers, which were also recorded on a video he recorded on his phone. Doug from New Jersey recalled a fond memory of hearing Art Bell for the first time during the "Mel’s Hole" shows in 1997. He also told a story of seeing a glowing lure that was used for night fishing leave the water, move onto land, and then float off through the trees "moving like a balloon that got away from a kid." He says it then cleared the trees and floated away.

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Sound Weapons, Plastic Disaster & Black Holes C2C April 26, 2018

Investigative reporter Linda Moulton Howe discussed a recent report confirming serious neurological problems in US and Canadian diplomats assigned to the Cuban embassy in Havana and their possible cause. Linda played a recording of her interview with Douglas H. Smith, M. D., Professor of Neurosurgery and Director of the Center for Brain Injury and Repair, University of Pennsylvania. Smith said that whatever was causing the disturbances in the Embassy may have "selectively injured" the brain’s delicate network of nerve fibers and also resembled something like blunt-force trauma to the heads of victims. Linda guessed that the technology may have been in the ultrasound range above the confines of human hearing and broadcast into buildings from some remote location nearby. She also described the range of sound frequencies and known effects on the human body.

Next, she interviewed Boyan Slat, Founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup, which is a company that is attempting to clean the Pacific Ocean plastic gyre. The gyre is an area of floating plastic trash three times the size of Texas. The plastic is killing marine life at an alarming rate and also breaking down into microscopic pieces which end up in the food chain and in fish that humans eat. Slat says he has developed a system for gathering and then removing the floating trash using "long floating barriers to let the ocean currents do the hard work" which is then removed by a fleet of ships. Linda also mentioned a group at a UK university who have developed an enzyme that breaks down plastic drinking bottles into their original chemical components.

In the third hour, Linda talked to astrophysicist Michael D. Johnson about the first attempt to image the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. This will be done with a device that consists of a group of instruments called the Event Horizon telescope. What Johnson expects to see will be "sort of like a crescent moon" as the telescope will be seeing the effects of the black hole and not the object itself. The result could come as soon as the end of this year. In the last hour, Linda spoke about the present state of UFO research and observed that recently, audiences she sees at meetings and conferences "seem to be more and more educated and asking great questions." She described a box of anomalous items known as "Art's parts" which were strange metal samples sent to Art Bell many years ago and the amazing properties the artifacts seemed to exhibit.

ET Contacts

First-hour guest, researcher, author, and casting director Craig Campobasso talked about his UFO research, writing, and film work. Campobasso stated that when he was 26 years old, he had a "major spiritual awakening" which sparked his interest in UFOs and extraterrestrials. He announced the fourth book in his "Autobiography of an Extraterrestrial" series is about to be released, and that his award-winning short film "Stranger in the Pentagon" (based on the accounts of 1950s UFO contactee Frank Stranges) is in the planning stages of being turned into a feature film. Campobasso stated that he believes that Valiant Thor (the alien Stranges wrote about) has not left the Earth, but "is still here in his Victor class saucer" along with 186 others that orbit our planet.

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