Preying on those having hard times

As much as I have always been irritated by having advertisements interrupt programs, I long for the days when the ads showed a smiling individual promoting toothpaste, a head of silky hair because the shampoo was so good, or a food that even Mikey liked.

The ads were positive and the goal was to make you want to try their product.

Now, a great number of ads target how to fix a problem-at "no cost to you."

If you have credit card debt, if you owe back taxes to the IRS, if you are receiving a payout over a number of years, if you need a motorized wheelchair, if you are having trouble paying your mortgage, "just call this number."

Given that ads are very expensive, I can only deduce that there must be a lot of money to be made out of the sadness and hard times of others. Since nothing comes without a cost to someone, if the recipient is not paying, it just might be that the rest of us are.

Karen Goettsche

Inverness