Consumerist Christmas - Can it survive?

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/consumerist-christmas-can-it-survive

It isn’t even important whether you or your family have a Merry or a Happy Christmas – the only important thing is whether corporations have a profitable Christmas. This is the true meaning of Christmas.

The mighty American marketing machine known as Christmas put on a brave front this weekend. Stores across the country opened up earlier than ever – some as early as 2:00 a.m. on Friday morning – and shoppers responded. Some consumers gave up their Thanksgiving Thursday altogether by using that day to stake their position on a sidewalk outside Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target, or Sears. The rewards were high – those who were first in the store on Black Friday had the best shot at buying at deep, deep discounts. Flat screen HDTVs, which were otherwise priced at $1,000 minimum, were on sale for $300, but only on Black Friday and only to the earliest few into the store. (Image)

It’s a sign of the desperation of American retailers that they even have to market something called “Black Friday.” This used to be an obscure term used by retailers to identify the day after Thanksgiving, when shoppers came to the malls in droves to begin their Christmas shopping, thus guaranteeing retailers would be “in the black” (profitable) for the rest of the year. Most Americans don’t even know this, and are right to think there is something sinister about Black Friday, coming so soon as it does after another great American marketing campaign – Halloween. For every person shopping on Black Friday, two or three consumers stayed home, intimidated by the crowds, or disgusted with the commercial boosterism that has now overwhelmed Christmas. How, they wonder, did things get so out of hand?

If You Think It Didn’t Used to Be this Way

There has been a qualitative and quantitative deterioration in the Christmas shopping experience, but the shopping frenzy is not altogether new. Even in the midst of the Depression of the 1930s, families did their best to provide at least one toy for their children from Santa Claus. By the 1940’s, many of the top radio programs devoted one episode in December to a Christmas theme, and often this revolved around shopping for just the right gift at a department store. Department stores were places of glamour and sophistication, and families would often make a trip “downtown” to see the department store window displays as part of their own Christmas tradition. If you had children you couldn’t leave the store without visiting Santa Claus in his North Pole pavilion, located unsurprisingly right next to the toy section of the store.

More at the link ---

[Nuclear Unicorn]

1. Consumer activity also creates jobs.

Remember the stimulus?

[FSogol]

2. Maybe the corporations will evolve to the point that they realize that if everyone

earned more, they would have much more to spend.