Interesting facts quoted from Consumed by Benjamin Barber (page 11):
”…while the United States spen about $16 billion in foreign aid 2003, the projected American expenditure for advertising for 2005 was $276 billion (about one-half of the world’s projected advertising expenditure for 2005). If manufacturing needs rather than goods is a primary task of consumer capitalism, however, the massive advertising and marketing budgets are understandable.”