But how odd that the Commission does not monitor the advertising put out by departments of the US Government. Writes Milton Friedman, ‘Anyone who has bought government bonds over the past decade has been taken to the cleaners. The amount he received on maturity would buy less in goods and services than the amount he paid for the bond, and he has to pay taxes on the mislabeled “interest”. Yet the Treasury continues to advertise the bonds as “building personal security,” and a 3 “gift that keeps on growing”.’ ‘The dirge of our times’ While very little advertising can be convicted of crimes against humanity, exposure to 30,000 TV commercials every year – the average dosage in American homes – suggests that Wilfrid Sheed had a point when he wrote that ‘the sound of selling is the dirge of our times’. When I lived in New York, I did not notice it, either because I was too busy to watch for more than half an hour a day (Walter Cronkite), or because I was corrupted by familiarity. But when I went to live in Europe, I grew accustomed to smaller doses of advertising. Today, when I return to the United States, I am enraged by the barrage to which I am subjected. And this does not apply only to television. On Sundays, the New York Times often carries 350 pages of advertisements, and some of the radio stations devote 40 minutes in every hour to commercials. I don’t know how all this clutter can ever be brought under control; the profit motive is too strong in those who own the media. In the average American home, the TV is turned on, if not watched, for five hours a day, which adds up to 25 years in the average life. But don’t blame the commercials for this addiction.