My posting today, the Friday after Thanksgiving, began a little later than normal. I was preoccupied, having gone out to a store to make a purchase. You see, there was something I wanted to buy that was offered at a ridiculously low price, and I wanted to get it while I could. Quantities were limited, you know. Fortunately for me, when I arrived I found that nobody else wanted to buy the same item. That’s the story of my life.
But the store wasn’t empty. Not by a long shot. It was full of people who were loading up on one particular big ticket item, a flat panel television. When I say loading up, I mean people had these big carts with two, three of them on board. Three big screen flat panel TVs! That must have been one heckuva good price.
As I watched them fight over who would get the last 7 dozen televisions, I couldn’t help but wonder how many were behind on their mortgage, formerly employed by Goldman Sachs or insured by AIG.
In the past, I would have thought this was none of my business. Hey, it’s your money. Spend it any way you want. But now, I see it as my business, since it’s my money being used to finance your home, business and the services you buy. The money you’re spending on those 3 flat panel TVs has been freed up because my money is being used in its place.
If my understanding of current economic thought is correct, this is precisely what our government wants to have happen. Let them pay for the mortgage so you can buy TVs. Once consumers start buying more TVs, the flow of commerce will regain momentum, build upon itself, and reinvigorate our economy. Then we’ll all be happy again.
Still, I didn’t get a warm and fuzzy feeling watching those 52 inch High Definition beauties fly off the shelf, and not just because I wasn’t going to drive home with one. I can’t seem to shake the feeling that I’m the only one who has missed the boat, or more precisely, wasn’t offered a ticket to the boat. Did I do something wrong? Did I blow it? Why am I feeling so left out?
By the end of the day today, television news (seen on brand new 52 inch flat panel TVs) will be telling us whether this was the best, or the worst, Black Friday ever. The stock market will react with joy or dread, or perhaps both according to whatever the traders ate for lunch. Either way, I can’t figure out which outcome is better for me, you or anyone else.
Consumerism, especially the crass kind that makes it’s home on Long Island, is an evil. No, not to enjoy material possessions per se, but to need them so desperately to enhance one’s self worth that one would risk the kids’ college or the house to get them, Getting back to the stores today would suggest that consumer confidence has returned, and the fear that they will need that last penny to buy bread is gone. It would also make me wonder whether people are willing to live without bread, as long as they have a flat panel TV or three.
I almost felt unAmerican walking out of that store in the early morning without a flat panel TV. I actually thought to myself, for just a moment, that I really should check out the price, and if it was that good, maybe I should grab one too. But then I said to myself, I don’t need a new TV. My old one, which is the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, works great and gets all the stations I like to watch.
And besides, I ought to keep my purchases under control, because you never know what bank is going to need a bailout tomorrow,
Update: From @NikiBlack and @RickHorowitz, this nightmare at a Long Island Walmart :
A worker died after being trampled and a woman miscarried when hundreds of shoppers smashed through the doors of a Long Island Wal-Mart Friday morning, witnesses said.
The unidentified worker, employed as an overnight stock clerk, tried to hold back the unruly crowds just after the Valley Stream store opened at 5 a.m.
Witnesses said the surging throngs of shoppers knocked the man down. He fell and was stepped on. As he gasped for air, shoppers ran over and around him.
But hey, it’s for the economy, right? But that’s not all:
Police did say there were several injuries but weren’t more specific. Jessica Keyes was among the shoppers. She told the Daily News she saw a woman knocked down just a few feet from the dying worker.
“When the paramedics came, she said ‘I’m pregnant,'” Keyes said. Paramedics treated the woman inside the store and then, according to Keys, told the woman: “There’s nothing we can do. The baby is gone.”
Happy now? So what exactly do you think as you relax, watch your 52″ flat panel, and clean the blood off your screen?
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Go ahead, tell us what you bought that no one else wanted.
My lips are sealed. Plus, it saves me from abject embarrassment.
A VCR, that’s my guess. Either that or a rotary phone.
Nope. I’m not taking the bait. No way, no how.
To be serious, I understand your point implicitly, that this is our business, now, and very much resent the mentality. It seems as though it was the norm, once, among the middle class to avoid buying things they could not afford. Otherwise, if they earned it, have their needs met, and wanted it, they would go for it. It was consumer confidence, that tomorrow would be even brighter, combined with a judgment of what a growing family would need tomorrow, including education. Bigger families were the norm, and needed providers. When things were tough, going out to eat and going out to shop were the first things to go.
The emphasis on consumer confidence now is overdone, isn’t it, as in, buybuybuy sheeple. Act as though there is no tomorrow. We’ll use other people’s money as public assistance if you made no provision for your needs. Or your children’s. You know, the chumps, who do think about tomorrow.
Naw it has to be something they still sell. Maybe something for Mrs. SJ.
Just stop it, you. I am not telling. I will not be goaded into talking. Nope. Ain’t happening.
Oh this is fun. Did you find White Shoulders at Target? Or hostess gowns?
WATCH THIS! THINK ABOUT THIS. The television media has you believing your tax money is paying for those televisions.
Might they be people buying them to put in their businesses or restaurants so you can watch the skewed news on televisions? TAXPAYERS ARE PAYING FOR BANK FRAUD AND UNFAIR LENDING PRACTICES – POINTING THE BLAME ON THE HOMEOWNER. The bailout monies are going to attorneys to sort out the mess at the tope.
The mortgage companies “approved” the mortgages; the mortgages were dependant upon the mortgage company’s appraised value of the home to be mortgaged – the more the home was appraised at, the more the lender would make in interest. Big interest. Double the value of the home in 30 years. It was their greed in this practice that they cover up by pointing to the few that may cheated on the applications – they turned a blind eye on those as well. The bailout is not helping the homeowner in trouble. The bailout is helping the executives in these financial institutions pay for lawyers to try to get things changed, and the tax payers will be ultimate sponsor for keeping those at the top on the gravy train.
No doubt many minds will change now. I hope you don’t mind that I deleted the other two copies you posted here of the exact same thing under other names. Too much of a good thing, you know.
what purpose does that kind of spam serve? or is it not spam, is it just someone very determined to make their fairly inarticulate point?
From my perspective, the occasional nut does a public service by reminding some other nut who might be inclined to do the same how ridiculous it comes off. For every one that appears, I hope that a thousand words are spared.
I woke up a little before noon and spent all of 15 minutes on my “Black Friday” shopping. The most inconvenient aspect was having to buy something else to get free shipping. Unless they’re there to buy computers, people have no business running around an actual store.
Is it just me or does “Black Friday” have liability written all over it for retailers?
Sorry Luke, but I got stuck on the “woke up a little before noon” part and can’t seem to get past it.
Well it has been a long time since I’ve been able to say that; I mention it only to illustrate that sometimes the early bird is just early, and that worms can be ordered online and shipped to ones door in the comfort of ones home.
So you got up a little past noon? I mean, that wasn’t a typo, right?
I agree with you completely, and generally avoid brick and mortar at all costs.
Scott, don’t worry about those people buying 2 or 3 TVs, because they’re not keeping the TVs.
Aside from the occasional rare case where someone’s picking up an extra for a relative or something, the people purchasing multiple TVs are folks who try to make money off of buying doorbuster products and turning around and reselling those items on eBay for profit.
If you remember what brand of TVs those were, go and take a look tonight or tomorrow at eBay for people selling those TVs. There will likely be a large number available, because of the resellers.
They’re all making the bet that the TV will sell for more on eBay than the store was selling it for. They’re betting that they can make money by pricing the TV between the regular, everyday store price, and the Black Friday doorbuster price. They’re there to sell to those people who both want TVs but aren’t going to wait in line at Best Buy(or wherever) at 2 in the morning until the store opens to get one.
The person who buys it on eBay saves however much less he pays than the regular, everyday price. The person who sells it on eBay makes however much more the buyer pays than the Black Friday price, his compensation for going out to the Black Friday sale, camping out in line to get the merchandise.
To this, I must quote Shel Silverstein:
If you’re a bird, be an early bird,
and get a worm for your breakfast plate.
Oh, if you’re a bird, be an early bird,
But if you’re a worm – sleep late.
Why computers?
Wal-Mart Cops A Deal
A district attorney’s job is to ascertain who has committed a crime and then prosecute the sucker.
Wal-Mart Cops A Deal
A district attorney’s job is to ascertain who has committed a crime and then prosecute the sucker.