"The payment system today is built to advance impulse buying," says Nader, whose new book The Seventeen Traditions extols the civic responsibility embraced by our forebears. "The less you stop to think at the point-of-sale what you're paying for something, the less mindful you'll be of whether you really need it or who you're buying it from."

Below is a list of major U.S. companies disdained by many consumers, the reasons for their sullied reputations and why we've but ourselves to blame for their market domination:

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT)

Consumers have grown to tolerate Microsoft's virtual monopoly on computer-operating systems, as we did AT&T's on nationwide phone service until the U.S. Supreme Court ordered its breakup in 1984.

Countless tech-industry insiders, however, still seethe with loathing for Bill Gates' creation. As they see it, Microsoft's stranglehold is stymieing innovation in the computer field just as Ma Bell's did in telecommunications – until her dismantling unleashed the technology revolution upon which Microsoft so adroitly capitalized.

The stability that average computer users think they get in return for tolerating the most powerful monopoly since the pre-breakup AT&T is illusory, says Roger Noll, professor emeritus of economics at Stanford University and an expert in business regulation.

"Microsoft's dominance is the very reason there are such serious problems with viruses and worms," Noll says, since perpetrators have a huge target to broadly attack. "They're the classic unregulated monopoly, producing a single homogeneous product for which they don't have to worry about quality."

Consumers continue to buy Microsoft's Windows for three reasons – it's preloaded on our new units, plus fear and ignorance. Better the devil we know since the one we don't would require all of us technophobes to learn a new operating system.

Exxon-Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM)

This gargantuan created by the 1999 merger of the No. 1 and No. 2 U.S. oil companies reunited two of Standard Oil's major holdings prior to its breakup. Now the world's largest company, Exxon-Mobil pocketed more than $35 billion in annual profit in 2005 and 2006 by shrewdly exploiting the geopolitical fears that drive the high-stakes trading market for black gold.

Exxon-Mobil has been exposed as a leading financier of the campaign to debunk global warming. Its aim: To keep us dependent on its fossil-fuel effluent as long as conceivably possible.

So how are consumers culpable in Exxon-Mobil's excesses? We elected a Texas oilman to the White House who packed his administration with industry insiders, took us into a war that disrupted global crude supplies to the industry's advantage, and extended Big Oil massive and arguably unwarranted tax breaks.

And despite a flirtation with smaller fuel-efficient cars after the 1970s gas shortages, we quickly became petrol gluttons again buying more than 50 million new SUVs and minivans -- and then whined that we got played when gas hit $3 a gallon.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT)

Let's face it: Wal-Mart is far from the Great American Success Story it was not long ago.

Founded by a pickup-driving Arkansan who cut his one-time five-and-dime store's associates in on profit-sharing to keep unions out, Sam Walton once wrapped the company in the Stars & Stripes with a highly touted "Buy American" campaign.

Since his 1992 death, the world's largest employer has become a massive storefront for cheap China Inc. products. Still 41 percent owned by Sam's widow and his four children's families – who rank sixth to 11th on the richest Americans list with $15 billion fortunes each – it now pays meager wages and sends employees who can't afford its health-insurance plan onto public-assistance programs for which we taxpayers must foot the bill.

Yet one widespread criticism – that Wal-Mart turns Main Streets into ghost towns after setting up on the outskirts – isn't the fault of the company that commands 20 percent of U.S. grocery sales and 45 percent of toy sales through its 1 million-member workforce. That blame rests squarely with consumers, says Michael Katz, a UC Berkeley professor who served as chief economist for the Justice Department under President Bush and the Federal Communications Commission prior to that under President Clinton.

"People choose to spend their money there," Katz says. "Wal-Mart may be putting small businesses out of business. But what percent of them were providing employee benefits?"

And as its supporters point out, Wal-Mart provides a source of cheap goods to America's swelling underclass – which just happens to include many of its own employees.

Home Depot Inc. (NYSE: HD)

Shareholders grew enraged when the No. 2 U.S. retailer behind Wal-Mart paid CEO Robert Nardelli $210 million to step down in January – after paying him $245 million the previous five years. U.S. consumers are waking up to the home-improvement giant's other dubious practices.

Home Depot trumpets its low prices, but countless items can be found cheaper elsewhere -- smaller competitors just can't afford the advertising to get that message out. As it's grown, the building-experience level of its "knowledgeable" staff seems to have fallen sharply storewide along with the number available to advise do-it-yourselfers.

To expand its highly promoted installation business, Home Depot has amassed an army of sub-contractors too unskilled one way or another to make it on their own and willing to accept the little Home Depot pays them while charging homeowners near top dollar. The victims of their sometimes mediocre work quality: Consumers who opt for a Home Depot install over a similarly priced contractor they don't know out of sheer fear.

So how are consumers getting their just desserts? Blind addiction to the convenience of one-stop shopping and "Zero-percent interest for 12 months" on a Depot card -- only to discover they're charged 20-percent-plus backdated interest if they don't pay the balance by the due-date. Word to the wise: Most building-supply houses offer seasoned and readily available help at the front counter, sell near or below Home Depot's prices and often extend consumers their contractor discount just by asking for it.

Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX)

Americans have become undisciplined spenders. The markup many pay this retailing pioneer five-days-a-week or more for water run through coffee grinds has become a symbol of our excess.

It's not Starbucks' profit margins that sparks animus, but it's scorched-earth marketing strategy. We laugh at the joke, "I'll meet you at the Starbucks across from the Starbucks," but many of us resent the Seattle-based chain's in-your-face plastering of its brand all over our downtowns.

Consumers patronize Starbucks for much the same reason they do McDonald's, which missed the cut for this list only because it's now a cliché to rip on Mickey D. Our shift to harried two-income and single-parent households makes a cup of premium coffee a reward – just like fast-food becomes the easiest way to feed kids picked up late from day care. Ironic that McDonald's cheaper basic brew beat Starbucks' in a Consumer Reports taste test published in this March's issue.

Says Nader: "Starbucks isn't selling coffee; they're selling reliable décor and a lifestyle. It's more homogeneous America, instead of little coffee shops across the country (selling for less) with their own style and name."

Your High-Speed Internet Service Provider

Forget cell-phone companies, which we universally dislike. What more can you say about companies that boast in ads that their service is less bad than their competitors'?

A growing target of derision is now our high-speed internet provider since consumers basically have just two choices in most regions – a cable or DSL line.

"A lot of people don't even have a choice, it's either DSL or the cable company," says Bob Williams, director of hearusnow.org, a telecom-consumer advocacy site sponsored by Consumers Union. "You can get as mad as you want at your provider, but where are you going to go? Consumers feel pretty neutered in that respect."

Add to that indignity the surprising return of Ma Bell – at least 5/7ths of her. Almost written off for dead six years ago as its long-distance business collapsed, AT&T since acquired five of the seven regional "Baby Bells" created after the 1984 breakup along with Cingular wireless, making it the No. 1 U.S. cellular provider.

The ultimate goal of AT&T, Comcast and the like is to become a monopoly on a scale that would make old Ma Bell blush – controlling not only telephone service, but also television, movie and internet access with a single digital line into our homes. They're bundling services in packages with teaser rates to hook us, expecting we'll all sheepishly stay wired to them when the intro deal expires six to 12 months hence.

Says Williams: "Regulators say there's all this new competition with the internet and that changes everything, but any time one or two companies control a market for something people need or want to have, the consumer inevitably suffers."

The upshot: We've gotten in bed with these companies and may feel a little sleazy and used, yet we remain seduced.

We may rue the day we let Steve Jobs and Apple commandeer the music-delivery industry -- from song sales into our ears -- so he could show old-rival Bill he can corner a market, too. For now, consumers don't have many champions in Washington since, as the Depression-era song goes: "On the Big Rock Candy Mountain, the cops have wooden legs."