Holiday Shopping and the Economy
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-11-23/holiday-shopping-and-economy
Black Friday comes early this year as some retailers open their doors Thanksgiving night in hopes of cashing in. Holiday spending and what it could mean for the economy.
Guests
James Roberts
professor of marketing and W.A. Mays Professor of Entrepreneurship at Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business, and author of "Shiny Objects: Why We Spend Money We Don't Have in Search of Happiness We Can't Buy"
Ylan Mui
Washington Post's consumer reporter
Mark Zandi
chief economist of Moody's Analytics and author of "Financial Shock" and the forthcoming book, "Paying the Price."
Ellen Davis
Vice President of the National Retail Federation
Comments
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I wonder if we are spending more time at the stores on thanksgiving weekend (or day) because our families are less cohesive than they use to be, with divorces, single parents, etc. We also have to travel further to be with family on Thanksgiving. I also wonder if we are not duped into believing that a) our buying people things will improve our relationship with them and b) that somehow our spending will save the economy.
Bob she would be canned
Shoppers being trampled on black Friday.
Live footage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOVD-m8urJU
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-11-26/us/new.york.shoppers_1_black-friday-s...
HOPEFULLY NO SHOPPERS WILL BE TRAMPLED AGAIN ON BLACK FRIDAY
I Love the Diane Rehm show... always balanced!
I'm dismayed by the large number of listeners and Americans who seem to think there is a qualitative difference between shopping on Thursday evening or Friday morning. In my opinion, they're ultimately the same thing and so-called boycotts of Black Friday shopping ammount to very little if these good consumers will dutifully spend every bit of their paychecks in time for Christmas. Holiday shopping now or later is still motivated by relentless pressure to consume and meet a twisted social norm; real resistence would look much different.
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For some years now I have been referring to the day before Thanksgiving as "the last shopping day of the year". I am sick of the materialism and the consumerism and I refuse to observe Christmas.
that caller nailed it. How many people can afford really afford to go shopping when they can barely pay their bills?
@ November 23, 2011 - 10:28 am sacchinft wrote: "Money can't buy happiness but sure feels better to cry in a Mercedes rather than on a bike..." Have fun crying in your Mercedes this Black Friday as you're stuck in traffic jam of "shoppers" and I whisk past you on my bicycle!
Your conversation leaves out an important point: many families travel on Thanksgiving, out of town and out of state. If a member has to work, it's not simply a matter of having to go to bed early, but might be a matter of missing out on the Holiday--and the family visit--altogether.
When I hear that "consumers" will commit such effort and time to standing in line to buy "stuff", I think of how few of those citizens would choose to stand in a line even remotely that long to vote!
Lamb that may be the only silver lining in the economical situation. And it is so much easier to say no to shopping when you can afford to shop...quite another when you have no choice
Critical Chris that is such a cool point. Even in our little town of Athens I would be amazed at how some of the young skate folk I know would end up on the other end of town faster than I could drive.
Such a great point
Sue gibbs.
Not always but they do try. Have heard quite a bit of unsubstantiated claims about Iran on the Diane Rehm show over the last eight years with no objections coming from Diane. Dangerous...really dangerous
Amen, Sestius!
I'll raise my glass to you and yours on International Buy Nothing Day after I finish work.
Have a peaceful holiday!
On Black Friday, my family refuses to shop. Instead, we celebrate Caramel Day:
http://writinginthemarginsburstingattheseams.blogspot.com/2011/11/expect...
I could not agree more with the callers who reminded us that Thanksgiving is about giving THANKS for what we have, not shopping -- and that it is dangerous and sad that the entire American economy has come to be defined by business and consumption. The GDP does not even include anything that does not result in a product people can buy. How can we accept that as the measure of our country?
And as for your guest's comment that people can spend quality time with their families "all day Friday" after they have worked from midnight to 8 a.m., that is just absurd. It's extraordinary that she said it without a trace of irony. Why not just ask people to work and shop 24/7 all the time?
I subscribe to Reverend Billy's Church of Life After Shopping (formerly the Church of Stop Stopping), a NY City activist group to encourage people to have some perspective about the holidays and the place of consumerism in their lives.
I hope more people choose to spend Thanksgiving acknowledging and treasuring what is really of value.
Greetings-
Love your show. Thought this was a good opportunity to bring up a national collaborative effort Shift Your Shopping.The American Business Alliance and other national organizations representing over 38,000 independent local businesses across the nation are asking customers to shift their holiday shopping to their favorite local retailers. in this way you can take back the joy of shopping and generate three times the economic impact in your local community. Shift Your Shopping and Celebrate!
The Normal Geographic {unKnown!-?} Child Left Behind will bind our souls and our {desperate} consumer-mind.
Yet... this misplacEd youth will _rationalize their geo=diss-normal demise ...and therefore the Hole natioanlized world's compromise_.
There is a solution but it amBiguates as lonely pollution, and histories geographic delusion.
Then rhymes with crimes occupy our confused money and our precious Time. the Space that manifests diss-Grace, is the destination for pilgrims who safely grew-up in some distant place. That place, and "our face" is twisted by dictators with an old-world pace.
The geographic-ProPHit with mixed-feelings will knock-it, and social-eye's in some dysfunctional pocket, not civilized but with shallow roots can mock-it.
But tied to a rocket She will surely unlock it. and seen from the sofit [I don't even know what a "sofit" is, some education huh?] we COULD see the truth from the trace. And pro-actively put the Dictators inn their place. or remain in the crack-house of geo-historic-cultural mal-lace.
A.N.N.Y.T. is the sacreligious Medicine or software in an impossibly-UNBELIEVaBLY hard place, when ["normal teens"] and where [your closest ancestral decent] secondary geo-norm'z take FIRST PLACE, inn a gentleman`$ holy-grace.
or perhaps a dictators savage face?
Liberty without a chAce, just a time and a space... at a MAGICAL PACE.
X-files stacked and scattered in a pile, THERE!!! is you communities true-grace at a million miles "away"!, and capitalism'z strongest face. But THE GOVERNMENT MUST PLACE the whole with the ace. And moralize the Whole mOther----- place, and manifest our saCred-Fate.
DO NOT WAIT for the tertiary disgrace, you will cry, we will lie and yet remain shall the CRUCIAL prime-case; no-health nor "happy" face or mace disgrace.
SPACE TALK, \/ normatively-walk...
For a gentleman who was set against a society bent on consumption, the panelist, James Roberts mentioned the name of his book "Shiny Objects" an annoying 4 times during the show... I can only assume in an effort to raise sales of the book.
When I go to a shopping mall on any saturday I can barely find a parking spot, crisis or not. I guess people still go there but buy less. What I do notice is the disappearance of small retailers that are outside the big malls. They're mostly replaced by banks, no kidding.
When did we cross the line and become "consumers" instead of citizens? I never shop on Thanksgiving or Black Friday. Maybe larger, national employers do but I don't know of any local retailers who pay more for working a holiday.
Gifts we're making this year: cookies, truffled salt, felted hats, and shrinky dink ornament kits for the kids.
Barbara in Santa Cruz
"kathleen wrote:
Sue gibbs.
Not always but they do try. Have heard quite a bit of unsubstantiated claims about Iran on the Diane Rehm show over the last eight years with no objections coming from Diane. Dangerous...really dangerous
November 23, 2011 - 11:00 am"
Try this!!! Among the totally deranged, over the top, Jews and Right Wing Liars against Iran, Bachmann goes over even that top.
http://www.npr.org/2011/11/23/142693131/analysis-of-gop-presidential-debate
For some strange reason, NPR is taking a closer look at the Republican Party and Spokespersons.
http://www.npr.org/2011/11/23/142693129/debate-shows-gop-has-little-unit...
Cain, Bachmann, Gingrich, Paul, Santorum, Perry are Nuts, completely out of touch with any kind of reality and their answers are mostly blather. Romney deliberately misquoted President Obama, then defended it.
If he speaks for the Church of Latter Day Saints, then the concerns of some Voters about his Faith may be justified.
Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com
My husband and I heard this show on the retail promotion of Black Friday and agreed with the callers who shot it down. Then I open our e-mail and find a booster seeking message from the president of the US Chamber of Commerce addressed to my 66 year old, laid off after 28 years, husband. Apparently because we are in a high-priced zip code, it never occured to them that our house is inherited and we're no more likely to shop this Friday than we'll be going to the moon.
Owning stuff is not the stuff of life, loving each other is!
US found flyer in trash(more helpful than BIG charities or government layers so far...)
AS has hope/promise of meal tomorrow... with brothers and sisters too!
without fear of rousting by armed thugs
OR macing like the old daze BUT with new 'pep'
and MAYbe indoor plumbing?
NOT legal to sleep or rest there either though...
until 'black' Friday then...
and OCCUPY threat DHS ?
Seems your parents- er- partners ALREADY did the HARM(nonlethal force protection system- yep-- why?) last decades choices of 'safety'...
US could have saved US too if US bailed out too... oh well
not pig enough
NOT to fail obviously
NEXT meal CHRISTmas?- new to this all... help US God... suffer this trials of tears... and help others... overcome THEIR fears... of US
..THAT KIND OF "SALE" IS NOTHING MORE THAN GREED GREED GREEEEEEEDDDDD....THE BIG CORPORATIONS ARE NOT HAPPY DESTROYIING USA ECONOMY BUT NOW ARE DESTROYING AMERICAN TRADITIONS...THANKS GIVING DAY IS MEANT TO SPEND QUALITY TIME WITH FAMILY...NOT TO SPEND THE MONEY WE DONT HAVE AND THEY (THE BIG CORPORATIONS) DESIRES SO BAD....SO SAD
Kaltoons---I thought the exact same thing. Roberts made some good points, but he was shucking his book like a sideshow barker...hard to make a point about comercialism and the evils of consumerism as you're pushing a product to line your pockets.....it cracked me up
*
To add to my comment from the show, though I spend the Black Friday talking to people for a Black Friday podcast, I wind up spending practically nothing on that day. Maybe lunch. I am one of those types of people who buy stuff for people throughout the year and I see Black Friday as a spectator event. I always ask people, "what are you buying?" The answers are varied as I never seen an item in the circulars that I just need to get for the holiday. So I can't judge the hot ticket item. I am always amazed.
During the 2008 Christmas, after the Crash. I spoke to many people about how they are handling Christmas and the down turn. Many folk told me of reigning in their spending and again most came out to be part of something for the evening.
I have seen and talked to plenty of people who make Black Friday into a family affair. I am quite aware of the fact that everybody has their own take on family time and this is one of them. I have met people who have made spending time out in the cold as fun as possible. Another way is my family venturing forth with me to cover Black Friday.
I bike at town centers all the time. I always have parking and it is easier to get from one portion of a center to another.
I was totally creeped out by how often the guy talking about not shopping plugged his book. Maybe the show needs to have an agreement with guests so they don't do that?!
Otherwise I thought it was a great show! Thank you, Diane!