College student needing proofreading of a paper

Hello,
I am a student of English Rhetoric 1, your basic freshman college composition course. I am having difficulty with a paper and am wondering if someone here would have the time to read it over and tell me what you think. I think I am having problems with the thesis statement; perhaps it is still unclear after the first couple of paragraphs or even the first page what my topic is. Please excuse that I have not yet written a conclusion. This writing is still very rough; it's barely my first draft. All I did was jot down my ideas without yet worrying about spell-check and the like.
We live in a terrific, free world. The greatest thing about the Western world is that we are free as individuals to make certain choices that we feel are best for ourselves. Personally, I feel that the good life is having the ability to choose what is best for me. For me, that choice is investment in technology. Technology helps me get things done quicker. I rely on fast network and Internet access to information, so that I may get things done faster, and thus have more time to have fun and have more time to help other people. I have more time to learn about life and the world, and have more time to expand my life philosophies. That choice works well for me.
I am glad that I have the option to choose what is right for me personally. These days, though, Americans are making individual choices that are to the detriment of society; therefore, I feel that it is time for us each to rethink our personal choices.
Certain authors criticize the fact that members of Westernized nations consume too much. While that is true, their error is that they usually preach that their solution is the right one for everyone. My solution is that in order to avoid over-consumption, people should carefully evaluate their purchases, try to figure out what they individually need to succeed, and try to avoid buying more than that. I'd much rather tell people to decide for themselves than pretend that I know what they need. We do, however, need to individually evaluate our purchases in order to avoid over-consumption, because there are many consequences of purchasing too much.
The life that I have chosen for myself revolves around collective responsibility for the global society. Decisions that you make in your own best interest are, by their very nature, the best decisions that could be made for the interest of the world. That's because when people make decisions for themselves about what is right, the whole world is improved.
On the other hand, sometimes people make decisions impulsively, decisions that are short-term and are bad in the long-term, not only for themselves, but for society. When people make such decisions, they come back around and hurt their children, and sometimes themselves.

What with all of the global community benefits that go with individual choices, I am saddened to see that most Americans are making decisions in their own short-term interests without balancing those interests against the long-term needs of the world, thus short-changing themselves in the process. There are many arenas in which Americans make such decisions, but the main problem is that we want to be able to do anything, at any time, and have access to everything. We want to be able to travel anywhere we want to at any time.The more than people seek such instant gratification, the faster our natural resources will be used up. Our incessant American desire to do everything and be everywhere is ruining our planet. Much of this can be traced to advertisers, who only care about selling their product, and nothing else. Television commercials for sport-utility vehicles commonly depict the vehicles plowing through swamps, or against pristine forest backdrops. The message attempted is that this car will help you conquer anything and everwhere.

Perhaps that is why SUVs are so popular here in America. We utilize fast-food because of our busy rushing-around schedules, yet those diets eventually make us overweight. We consume whatever is necessary to be entertained, which often skyrockets, and requires excessive vehicle transportation to get there when we may not really need to go to that place. People obsess over their wardrobes, too; while a child in an undeveloped country often must make do with one or two pairs of dirty clothes, middle- and upper-class Americans worry about one outfit for outings, another for work, Sometimes I think that people require too many options.

American consumption causes debt, foreclosure. Unnecessary consumption causes unnecessary worldwide transportation of products, which wastes natural resources.
This excessive consumption is ruining our planet and our global society. The most prominent threat is that the more options and choices we require, the more fuels we will dry up and the more exhaust that we will put into the atmosphere. The less-obvious threat is that there is an increasing division between the haves- and the have-nots; as Americans and Western nations spread the idea that you can do anything and be everywhere, those who can afford the required accessories will prosper, while those who cannot will perish. There will be greater and greater competition for the middle class to compete with the rich, causing greater and greater debt. Political power goes to the world's wealthiest one percent.
I am not, however, criticizing global trade. I am criticizing unnecessary global trade. Free trade builds up economically-poor communities, enhances cultural inter-communication, and facilitates exchange of ideas. It also leads to better products; I am no longer bound to buy the products that are made in my country.
If we each as individuals reduce our amount of consumption, then we can maintain global trade with less harmful effects. Do we really need the bumper dumper? Or green-colored chocolate milk themed after the movie Hulk?
It seems apparent to me, however, that writers on the subject of consumption tend to be a bit pius. There is one simple point to determine how much consuming people should do: they should consume whatever materials are necessary to support their attempts to make the rest of the world a better place. No more than that. These authors have judged our consumption habits without understanding why people have bought what they have bought.
Louis Uchitelle, in his article "Keeping Up with the Gateses," interprets and summarizes works by Juliet Schor and Robert Frank, two authors of books about consumer consumption. These authors discuss alternative lifestyles that they have chosen for their own families but do not admit that not everyone could live on such lifestyles. Uchitelle talks about what these authors call "competitive consumption," a type of consumer behavior in which people purchase goods not out of necessity but in a competition with the rest of society to be perceived as rich.

Schor states that most Americans compete for and image themselves against images of people and things whom they perceive to be of the top income level - images that come from the media and advertisements. Television, in her report, proportionally increases spending. Mr. Frank shares many of Schor's opinions, except Frank writes that most Americans compete against those just a little higher than themselves in income level. Uchitelle then states that Ms.

Schor records in her book that people don't necessarily make purchases of items which have improved value or utility, but often purchase items more costly with smaller value or utility simply because those items carry more status.

Both Frank and Schor state that they would fix this problem through a "spending tax," which hits high spenders.Schor says that ever-increasing spending on perceived status symbols is "a waste of national resources" and of savings. I agree with Schor and Frank that the level of consumption is increasing, and I feel that this can be bad. Ms. Schor and Mr. Frank are, however, a bit pious in their writings. Who are they to criticize other people's lifestyles? Uchitelle describes some examples of Ms. Schor's no-frills spending habits. Ms. Schor and her family own one car.

Their residence is close enough that Ms. Schor can walk to work; it is also within walking distance of the local elementary school. every person's needs are different, and that means that every person will spend differently to support themselves. Just because Ms. Schor and her husband choose to live within walking distance of most of the things they need daily, doesn't mean that that is the best choice for everyone. Whether the subject is schools, available employment, or other things, the ability to commute means more - and sometimes better - choices for families and individuals.
Besides that, a healthy dose of consumerism is good for the American economy. To regulate consumption in any way violates our freedoms and hurts the economy. When you go out and buy a DVD, you are putting food on the tables of the people who created that DVD. The more that money changes hands, the better our economy traditionally has been.

But of course, there are extremes to everything. People frequently purchase all of the movies that they like, yet infrequently watch them. Why not just rent movies? Whenever you buy things that you really don't need, you are setting a precedent for everyone else by telling poor people, as well as your own children, that they need to own what you own. Competition between classes sets in, and when you buy things that you really don't need, that is unhealthy and leads to greater and greater competition, or "competitive consumption."
The solution to avoiding unnecessary consequences of global trade and competitive consumption is to evaluate for yourself what you need and allow yourself a percentage, to be only determined by you, of what you don't.