Recession? What recession? Shoppers spent more on Black Friday this year than they did last year. Good news, right?
Well, Sharon Astyk begs to differ. If you think the Black Friday bargains were good, just wait till you see what you can buy come February, when people start running out of money to buy crap. A reader wrote this morning asking if I didn't think that there was something deeply wrong with the credit-card companies that pounded people with offers to take out lines of credit that they couldn't afford; yes, I do, and I think that laws should be passed against it. But that doesn't stop the cultural problem at the root of the manipulation. John Taylor Gatto, a lapsed Catholic and education reformer, wrote that one good thing religion has going for it is that it gives you a point of resistance against the manipulators. A spiritually content person, he said, is a lot harder to manipulate.
Anyway, here's an excerpt from Sharon's must-read post:
I didn't buy nothing yesterday, I admit. It was too good a chance to take my kids to the science museum in Boston while I'm here. So I bought tickets, half of lunch with friends at a thai-buddhist vegetarian restaurant, and while I was in the neighborhood, picked up a songbook for a friend, Goodnight Moon in Hebrew for another friend, and some sheets of beeswax for a homeschool project making Chanukah candles. And I'm not claiming any level of moral purity as I sit here on my laptop.But it isn't just that it has to stop - and it does - did you see that we now have 73% fewer zooplankton than we did in 1960? Nearly every sea animal or sea animal eating creature in the world is heavily dependent on zooplankton. That's why even if we could find a magic bullet to go on the way we could, it would just put off the inevitable reckoning. But it isn't just that it needs to stop - it is that it is stopping.
The economy is a game of music chairs, and the chairs are disappearing. When the music stops for each of us, and our chair is gone, for a time we will rely primarily on the resources we've built up now. Those of us left holding the big screen tvs and the designer handbags will have them - or whatever their resale value is. And those who have ties - biological or chosen - will have those. The truth is that our consumer culture needs us to be isolated, fragmented, alone, empty - or advertising wouldn't work, the nonsensical reasoning that we have to have this year's big thing wouldn't work. The primary project of consumer culture is to drive us apart, to make sure we do not share, we do not combine resources, or even consult on how ridiculous the things we are being told are. And it has worked magnificently.
The music is hectic, the chairs are disappearing, we're going faster and faster. And pretty soon it stops. What will you have when it just...STOPS?
Read the whole thing. And by the way, check out Sharon's post about deflation and how it will affect the way we think about energy and peak oil.
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This blog is great as birth control. Who, in their right mind, would even think about bringing a child into the world blogged about here??? I say that as a young married person with no children currently.
My sisters and I walked out of the first electronics store with nothing. Overall, there just weren't that many good deals that won't be there this week and on into Christmas. Black Friday did seem to be the day to get a good deal if you were the type to get in line outside the store at midnight and spend $1000 on a singular gift, but if you were in the $100 and under range (or on a no credit card shopping order), you were out of luck.
And the lines were long. My job was to go stand in-line until my sisters were finished and then I would go looking around. Some of the cashier lines were more than an hour long, but over all orderly. There was also the opportunity to have a nice chat with a stranger with whom you were going to share close proximity until you got to the front of the line.
This is going to be a leaner Holiday for everyone in my family, but that doesn't mean it has to be thoughtless.
Happy Holidays!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mr. Charlie December 1, 2008 1:50 AM This blog is great as birth control. Who, in their right mind, would even think about bringing a child into the world blogged about here??? I say that as a young married person with no children currently.
Crunchcon theme song? America's new national anthem?
Gloom, despair, and agony on me. *OOOHHH*
Deep dark depression, excessive misery. *OOOHHH*
If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all. *OOOHHH*
Gloom, despair, and agony on me!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TDqvD34hEA
As for saving the Zooplankton, the decline has only just been measured, and the primary culprit (to the extent anyone knows) seems to be the acidification of the ocean due to global warming. So if you want to save the zooplankton, reducing emissions is probably a good start, as well as reducing the number of dead zones by not buying food grown with artificial nitrogen and not buying plastic, which ends up in the ocean. Not shopping helps there too.
Acidification can result from the oceans absorbing excess C02. Whether said C02 is causing global warming is a separate issue.
Holy mackerel, a Hee Haw reference. The thing is, I got it immediately.
No shopping for us on Black Friday, and my wife and I couldn't be lured out with a bundle of Franklins. A little bit of bargain shopping over the weekend (used bookstores, for the first time in months), but that's it. Too busy getting dug out of debt--not complaining, though. Grateful for what we've got, especially given our neighborhood, which seems to be getting a little less populated each month.
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