29 November 2011 | Black Friday Burnout

I was long sick and tired of Black Friday before it even began. 

I don't know how to describe it well, but I had this nagging feeling that media outlets were doing their best to hype up Black Friday more so than all the commercials. I had the impression that we were all being duly informed that it was our civic duty to help businesses out. (Those businesses, I might cynically add, are often toted as “job creators,” but that’s an entirely different issue.) 

So when the totals came in and were giddily reported on the news, I couldn't help but wonder how much of those totals (up to seven percent over last year) were credit card debt. And that would be super ironic since we keep hearing about Americans feeling the credit pinch and holding back on unnecessary spending. But I guess that Black Friday is supposed to be the exception to the rule because it’s one of the biggest shopping days of the year and we need to do our patriotic duty and spend, spend, spend. 

It also made me think of the entire financial system  collapse. While there’s no shortage of books on the subject, after reading “The Big Short,” it was plainly obvious that scores of people were goaded into lying about their financial worth and encouraged to get into debt, only to be screwed over big time. These people, to the self-righteous chest thumping of others, deserved their fate because of the loans they got for which they were unqualified. The financial system doesn't factor in that blame: instead, it’s all treated like a moral issue, with pious jerks on the sidelines ignoring the obvious. 

That’s how I think it is with this Black Friday orgy. People who probably don't have a lot of disposable cash are being encouraged to spend it all on heavily discounted merchandise: don't tell me that everyone paid in cash or had saved up their money. And that means that somewhere, a person will tsk tsk and not give a damn that people are having a tough time paying their bills. “Then they shouldn't have spent any money on useless items!” will be the cry. And then the whole thing will start all over again because the economy depends on consumer confidence and spending. 

Talk about a weird, vicious cycle.