Black Friday as mythbuster

Guest post by Ramona

Ed. note: This is Ramona's fourth guest post for us. Her first three were on cruelty in America, abuse against women, and the creepiness of Herman Cain. You'll be seeing more of her here at The Reaction, and I encourage you again to check out her wonderful blog. -- MJWS

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Ramona is a freelance writer based in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Her blog, "Ramona's Voices," is liberal-leaning, with such a small amount of navel-gazing you'll hardly even notice. She is also on the masthead at dagblog, a gathering place for dissidents and reprobates and other friendly people.

After the Thanksgiving Day gluttony is over and after our teams have either won or lost (our biggie between the Lions and the Packers went horribly awry for my loved ones, poor dears) and after we've taken our tryptophan-induced naps, the next fun thing to think about, talk about, or plan for is Black Friday, our annual Big Huge Shopping Extravaganza. It's the day when primitive survival skills kick in and the absolutely-must-haves traditionally go nuts and stampede in scenes that make even NatGeo-watchers go "Wow!"

(Rumor has it that Black Friday is the one day of the year when the Chinese pay homage to us. They would make it a national holiday, except everyone is busy at work manufacturing things for our Christmas rush.)

There's a myth in this country that goes like this: America is broke. Aside from a paltry few tax-evading King Midas wannabes, nobody else has anything much. That's the story.

Our jobless, our homeless, our soup kitchens, our empty former homes, our overflowing ERs -- that's all real. Painfully real. But what's also real is the hefty percentage of 99 Percenters who spread out at the stroke of Black Friday to go whole-hog spending astonishing amounts of ready cash and pay-later credit on stuff.

It's an American tradition contrived and perpetuated by the merchant class and, really, who are we to tell people (other than Congress) how to spend their (our) money? But a group known as "Occupy Black Friday," an off-shoot of Occupy Wall Street, while admirably opposing the longer open hours that would take employees away from their own families on Thanksgiving and endorsing the efforts to buy locally, took it one step further and came up with the idea of boycotting, instead of occupying, the major chains on That Day.  (The Occupying part wouldn't work at all, you see, since millions of shoppers would already be camping out and milling around, waiting for the doors to open.) 

Attempting to show the strength of the masses by boycotting major retailers on that all-important shopping day is one of those ideas that seems okay on the face of it, but which, in reality, is doomed from the start. It's a whisper in the wind, a dusky dot in the night sky, and here's why: I've been boycotting "Black Friday" for years now and nobody has ever noticed. Multiply me by, say, several hundred thousand and we still wouldn't be noticed. It's a happy tradition, the official start of the Christmas shopping season. Even in the worst economic downturn in decades, it's still a force bigger than all of us.

Okay, granted, this year, for whatever reasons, it seemed more intense than fun. A woman took to pepper-spraying other shoppers threatening to get too close to the prize she was after. A man slipped a DVD under his shirt, not to steal it but to prevent it from being stolen from him, and got himself shoved to the ground and bloodied for his efforts. People were knocked around and bruised. There were grim reports of shootings and parking-lot robberies. But to the victors went the spoils and it's those success stories that make it all worthwhile. (More to come the day after Christmas. Another happy tradition.)

As might be expected, the activities at "Occupy Black Friday" came to the attention of the folks over at Fox "News". Their idea of the perfect smack-down was to tell people to go out and shop 'til they drop. That'll show those damned Occupiers. Hah!

Now, I really hate to think Fox had that much influence, but this year Black Friday alone took in $11.4 billion, a 6.6 percent increase over last year, while the Thanksgiving weekend broke all sales records with a staggering $52.4 billion spent over four days. It was a jump of 16 percent over last year's sales, with record numbers of shoppers spending even more bucks on average.

No stats yet on the sales outcomes of Small Business Saturday, a truly sensational idea, even if it did come from American Express.

Yesterday was Cyber Monday (designated by the online merchants who felt left out, no doubt), the lead-in to Cyber Week (because why stop the momentum of a very good thing?), and on to Christmas, the Big Kahuna of cash-heavy, gift-giving holidays.

So about that whole "America is broke" business. We're looking into it. We'll have to get back to you on that.

Ham and Shadeggs

By Distributorcap

In the past two years, the Republicans have said and done so many outrageous and dumb things -- that it impossible to count them, keep track of them or remember them all. I would say the GOP has jumped the shark, but they did that back in 1980 when they nominated Reagan.

But today outgoing Arizona Representative John Shadegg may have actually jumped the Palin -- saying something so outrageous, so stupid, and so wrong it is hard to believe he hasn't been laughed out of Congress (or laughed out of the human race) a month early.

The Republicans are so smug and arrogant right now they actually think they can say ANYTHING can just get away with it. We are witnessing the modern day version of Pavlov's Dogs behavior -- if you are never punished or admonished for doing or saying the wrong things, then you will continue to do or say the wrong things. With no one in the media calling them out on their utterly ridiculous statements (e.g. "death panels") you end up with Pavlov's Elephants invoking Goebbel's big lie -- create a lie big enough and pound it in long enough AND not get called out on it -- and you end with a new reality.

From ThinkProgress:

BARNICLE: What about the fact that unemployment benefits pumped into the economy are an immediate benefit to the economy? Immediate...

SHADEGG: No, they're not! Unemployed people hire people? Really? I didn't know that.

BARNICLE: Unemployed people spend money Congressman, 'cause they have no money.

SHADEGG: Aha! So your answer is it's the spending of money that drives the economy and I don't think that's right. It's the creation of jobs that drives the economy... Actually, the truth is the unemployed will spend as little of that money as they possibly can. Job creators create jobs.

BARNICLE: Have you ever been unemployed? Have you ever been unemployed?

SHADEGG: Yes, I have.

BARNICLE: What did you do with the money? Save it?

It hard even to start on this one. Job creators create money as well as jobs and unemployed people hoard money!

I would think even an idiot like Shadegg would understand that someone who is unemployed will spend whatever they have (from savings or unemployment insurance) to keep their family fed and clothed. Shadegg seems to think that these people are headed to the craps table in Las Vegas or the roulette wheel in Monte Carlo -- or better -- stashing their newfound wealth in an offshore bank on the Cayman Islands.  How about the fact that many families are suffering greatly during this holiday season -- and would like to make sure their kids can find a little joy. Not John Shadegg -- these are leeches on society. 

Let's go to Shadegg's second corollary -- that the money the freeloaders will spend won't help the economy, but tax cuts for the idle rich job creators will boost economic output. If more and more people are out of work (some estimates say true un/under-employment is nearly 20%) and more and more of those people are losing their final safety net -- where is this great demand going to come from? 70-75% of the U.S. economy is based on consumer spending -- for groceries, gas, kid's toys etc. NO demand -- no need for goods and services. The trickled down money to the wealthy is not going to get invested in new businesses and increase production because the rich have an extra $50K in their checkbook. Corporations will create jobs if and when they have a need to -- MORE DEMAND.

Even fucking Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand would admit to that.

Tax cuts do NOT create jobs, because tax cuts do not create demand. Tax cuts create more cash for people -- they DO NOT make people spend. Giving the rich more money will not up their demand -- how many BMWs do they need? Do the beneficiaries of this tax cut largesse save that extra cash? Sure they do. Remember from basic economics 101 that savings = investment. Well, with the banks not lending to create growth, that theory is as good as a bad egg. When people and businesses have a need for something they spend -- not when they are given a free flow of cash.

Memo to Dodo Shadegg -- people living paycheck to paycheck and new businesses need to spend. The Koch brothers do not need to spend.

John Shadegg may be an evil and corrupt (hence typical) Republican, but even John Shadegg is not stupid enough to believe this (Palin and Bachmann yes, Shadegg no). Shadegg may be spewing the diarrhea (hate of the freeloading unemployed), but even he knows that unemployment benefits go directly back into the economy and that jobs are ONLY created when there is demand for products and services.

Oh, evil and corrupt and heartless John Shadegg wants to extend tax cuts for the rich -- but that was a given. After all the rich are job creators -- not freeloaders off the government dole.

You think the economy is bad now? Let's drop the final safety net for millions of unemployed Americans and watch small businesses -- businesses that cater to basic needs -- suffer. As an added bonus, property values will drop as even more homes get foreclosed.

Those people left without anything -- welcome to your Shadeggville.

This is only the tip of the teabag. When the Teabags really take control in January we are going to see even more "soak the poor" regulations. Remember -- there is a common pledge for all GOP members to abide by for the the next two years -- make things to get worse and blame the Kenyan Muslim socialist.

Why do people continue to fall for this crap?