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Black Friday: A Shameful Orgy Of Materialism For A Morally Bankrupt Nation
theeconomiccollapseblog ^ | 11/29/2013 | Michael Snyder

Posted on 11/29/2013 4:53:58 PM PST by SeekAndFind

It has been called "America's most disturbing holiday". Black Friday is the day when millions of average Americans wait outside retail stores in the middle of the night in the freezing cold to spend more money that they do not have for more cheap Chinese-made products that they do not need. It is a day when the rest of the world makes fun of Americans for behaving like "rabid animals" and "zombies" as we indulge in a tsunami of greed. It truly is a shameful orgy of materialism for a morally bankrupt nation. It is being projected that approximately 140 million Americans will participate in this disgusting national ritual this year. Sadly, most of them have absolutely no idea that they are actively participating in the destruction of the economic infrastructure of the United States. If you don't understand why this is true, please be sure to read this entire article all the way to the end.

The amount of merchandise that is purchased on Black Friday is absolutely staggering. For example, just consider how much stuff is sold at Wal-Mart alone...

Wal-Mart said it recorded more than 10 million register transactions between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. Thursday in its stores and nearly 400 million page views that day on walmart.com. It sold 2.8 million towels, 2 million televisions, 1.4 million tablets, 300,000 bicycles and 1.9 million dolls. Big-ticket electronics like big-screen TVs and new videogame consoles were among the top sellers.

But each and every year, Black Friday also seems to bring out the worst in many people, and this year was certainly no exception. The following are just a few of the national headlines about the rioting and the violence that we witnessed...

-"Holiday shopping season kicks off with fights, arrests"

-"Violence flares as shoppers slug it out for best Black Friday deals"

-"Watch Screaming Mobs Fight Over Televisions At Wal-Mart"

-"Two Arrested After Stabbing Over Parking Space At Wal-Mart"

-"Rialto Walmart Thanksgiving brawl sends one police officer to hospital"

-"Walmart Ejects Customer For Filming Violent ‘Black Thursday’ Mobs"

-"Cops: Shoplifting suspect shot after dragging officer"

And sometimes the violence extends out into the parking lots and into the surrounding neighborhoods. In Las Vegas, a man that was carrying a big-screen television home from Target was shot in the leg...

According to police, a man purchased a big-screen television from the Target store near Flamingo Rd. and Maryland Pkwy. While he was walking to a nearby apartment complex, a man approached and fired a warning shot, causing the victim to drop the television, police said.

Officers tell 8 News NOW the gunman then took the television to a nearby car that was waiting, where a second man helped the gunman load the TV into the car.

The victim approached the two men and tried to get the television back. That prompted the gunman to fire several more rounds, shooting the victim in the leg.

Every year I go over to YouTube to check out the madness that breaks out on Black Friday night all over the nation. Posted below is the best compilation video from Black Friday that I could find. In particular, I love how this video compares American shoppers to zombies...

And there is one more video that I wanted to share with you. In this video, activist Mark Dice dresses up like Santa Claus and mocks Black Friday shoppers for being "parasites" and for ruining Thanksgiving...

Meanwhile, as retail stores all over America actively encourage this zombie-like behavior, police are actually cracking down on other groups of Americans that are actively trying to make this country a better place. For example, a Christian group in Lake Worth, Florida was kicked out of a public park for trying to feed the homeless on Thanksgiving. Of course this kind of thing happens all the time. In fact, dozens of major cities all over the country have now passed laws that make it illegal to feed the homeless. For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled "One Lawmaker Is Literally Smashing The Belongings Of The Homeless With A Sledgehammer".

At the beginning of this article, I stated that those who go shopping on Black Friday "are actively participating in the destruction of the economic infrastructure of the United States".

How could that possibly be?

Aren't they helping the economy by spending their money?

Actually, it isn't that simple.

Just think about it for a moment. Where are most of the "advertised specials" that people go crazy over on Black Friday actually made?

If you guessed "China", you would be correct. In fact, it is very difficult to find any "Black Friday specials" that are actually made in the United States.

When you buy stuff made in China, you support workers and businesses in China. As I mentioned in a recent article, the U.S. economy loses approximately 9,000 jobs for every 1 billion dollars of goods that are imported from overseas.

Overall, the U.S. has run a total trade deficit with the rest of the world of more than 8 trillion dollars since 1975.

So when you look around and see lots of unemployed people, it should not be a surprise to you.

Right now, the labor force participation rate is at a 35-year-low and more than 102 million working age Americans do not have a job. That number has increased by 27 million just since the year 2000.

Because the American people are not supporting American businesses, our formerly great manufacturing cities are being transformed into rotting, festering hellholes. Just take a look at Detroit. At one time Detroit had the highest per capita income in the entire nation, but now it is a dying, bankrupt ghost town.

And of course this is happening to manufacturing cities all over the nation. Since 2001, more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities in the U.S. have permanently shut down and we have lost millions upon millions of good paying manufacturing jobs.

Back in the 1980s, more than 20 percent of the jobs in the United States were manufacturing jobs. Today, only about 9 percent of the jobs in the United States are manufacturing jobs.

Good job America. And the following are some more facts from one of my previous articles about how our massively bloated trade deficit is absolutely killing our economy...

-There are less Americans working in manufacturing today than there was in 1950 even though the population of the country has more than doubled since then.

-Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs. Today, less than 65 percent of all men in the United States have jobs.

-When NAFTA was pushed through Congress in 1993, the United States had a trade surplus with Mexico of 1.6 billion dollars. By 2010, we had a trade deficit with Mexico of 61.6 billion dollars.

-Back in 1985, our trade deficit with China was approximately 6 million dollars (million with a little "m") for the entire year. In 2012, our trade deficit with China was 315 billion dollars. That was the largest trade deficit that one nation has had with another nation in the history of the world.

-According to the Economic Policy Institute, America is losing half a million jobs to China every single year.

-According to Professor Alan Blinder of Princeton University, 40 million more U.S. jobs could be sent offshore over the next two decades if current trends continue.

Unfortunately, most Americans never stop to think about what happens when we buy stuff from China.

When we buy stuff from them, our money goes over there.

At this point, they are sitting on trillions of our dollars and they have purchased more than a trillion dollars of our debt.

Up until now, Chinese demand for our dollars has helped keep the value of the U.S. dollar artificially high. This is one of the reasons why Wal-Mart can sell you those Chinese imports so inexpensively.

And up until now, Chinese demand for our debt has helped keep long-term interest rates artificially low. So the U.S. government has been able to borrow money at ridiculously low interest rates and U.S. home buyers have been able to get mortgage rates that are well below the real rate of inflation.

But no irrational state of affairs ever lasts indefinitely, and the Chinese recently announced that they are going to quit stockpiling U.S. dollars. Many analysts believe that this means that the Chinese will soon stop stockpiling U.S. debt as well.

So enjoy those super cheap "Black Friday specials" while they last. That era is rapidly coming to an end.

Now that the Chinese have stolen tens of thousands of our businesses, millions of our jobs and trillions of our dollars, perhaps they feel that there is not much more looting to be done. Our economic infrastructure has been essentially gutted at this point. Moving forward, China can afford to let the value of the U.S. dollar fall and the value of their own currency rise because even Barack Obama admits that "those jobs are never coming back".

And every single American that went shopping on Black Friday and bought Chinese-made goods actively participated in the ongoing destruction of the U.S. economy.

Good job America. You are a nation that is utterly consumed by materialism and greed, and you don't even realize that you are destroying yourself with your own foolishness.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Society
KEYWORDS: blackfriday; mammon; mammonism; materialism; thanksgiving
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To: Vendome; MHGinTN

I had a Wolfgang Puck glass lid shatter yesterday - I suppose due to a vacuum created from cooling potato soup. Will now have to hit the streets and try to find a replacement this weekend.


61 posted on 11/29/2013 9:13:29 PM PST by Errant
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To: Errant

Had one do the same.

Now I only use some old Pyrex that’s 50-60 yrs old.


62 posted on 11/29/2013 9:36:57 PM PST by Vendome (Don't take life so seriously-you won't live through it anyway-Enjoy Yourself ala Louis Prima)
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To: montag813

You will never have to convince most rational people that the voter fraud in Illinois and Louisiana in 1960 was absolutely catastrophic for America. It changed virtually everything.


63 posted on 11/29/2013 10:20:27 PM PST by allendale
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To: jimsin

Turn off your caps lock!! Every post you make is in all caps.

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/by:jimsin/index?tab=comments;brevity=full;options=no-change


64 posted on 11/30/2013 7:51:30 AM PST by Arrowhead1952 (The Second Amendment is NOT about the right to hunt. It IS a right to shoot tyrants.)
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To: SeekAndFind
Alright, alright I confess: I was one of those "black friday" shoppers yesterday.

Although, I didn't "camp out" anywhere and didn't stand in a line to get into a store for more than 30 minutes.

I didn't see anyone pushing, shoving, hitting each other.

In fact, I didn't see anyone be anything other than courteous to those around them.

OMG, some even shared their coffee thermos' giving others refills on their coffee, another person ran to a Dunkin Donut's just across the street and bought a few dozen donuts to share with those around him.

I arrived at 8am with my two sons and nephew only to see a line go around the building. So we decided to try anyway.

We went to the back of the line like civilized people and struck up a conversation with those around us.

Thirty minutes later we were in the store. According to the nice Store Manager who was only letting folks in 25 at a time, we were over the 700th customer.

We got inside the store, everything was orderly, no pushing, shoving, etc.. and if someone was in your way as you reached to get something off a shelf they either politely moved out of your way, or asked which product you wanted and politely handed it to you.

We picked up all the parts to build a Gaming PC for under $625. The parts we picked would've easily been $950 - $1,100 were it not for "black friday" pricing.

We had what we came for and were out of the store by 9:30.

Honest to God the experience I typed above really happened. We were at the MicroCenter in Westmont, IL - pretty much a "geek heaven."

Geek's are the nicest people. :-) I give MicroCenter alot of credit in how they handled the orderly flow of customers through their store, and for all the Geeks being civilized.

BTW our Gaming PC runs Battlefield 4 in Steam at just over 90fps. ZERO lag. Incredible PC.

65 posted on 11/30/2013 8:02:01 AM PST by usconservative (When The Ballot Box No Longer Counts, The Ammunition Box Does. (What's In Your Ammo Box?))
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To: Vendome

50-60 year old Pyrex is mostly what I use. It has sentimental value.

My orgy didnt turn out so good. They said there had been two pallets of Tidy Cat and both were gone by 11. No rain checks. But she gave me a $3 coupon for my next visit. She also said people were lined up at 6 AM so they opened early. Evidently people in Everett are well-catted.


66 posted on 11/30/2013 9:10:45 AM PST by crazycatlady
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To: crazycatlady

I love old Pyrex. I have recently started to collect it. It’s so fun.


67 posted on 11/30/2013 9:12:02 AM PST by riri (Plannedopolis-look it up. It's how the elites plan for US to live.)
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To: Some Fat Guy in L.A.
I have never, not once, gone shopping on Black Friday. No plans to start either.
68 posted on 11/30/2013 9:14:00 AM PST by riri (Plannedopolis-look it up. It's how the elites plan for US to live.)
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To: SeekAndFind
Mac sez:

A fool & his money are soon parted…. – but these fools have what people in the 50's & 60's didn’t have….

…. free money from government!!! – Oh…. really not free – they’re all supposed to keep voting for democrats so that free money keeps falling from the sky!!!

Now – goods coming from ANYWHERE – even China – I’ll buy if the price and quality are there…

…. it’s called FREE TRADE – MORON !!!

GET OVER IT !!!

The “trade wars” of governments are a sham – and for each new regulation, tariff and other laws interfering with free trade hurts the poor & middle class the most……

It’s only justified if an offending country blocks our goods going into their country – and believe me, this country is just as bad an offender… SUGAR, ANYONE?… So – if a PRIVATE COMPANY wants to open on ANY DAY 24/7 – they should be able to!!!

And those Europeans who laugh?…. – don’t kid yourself – they’d live here in a N.Y. MINUTE if they could…..

This coming from an older white male who raised a daughter SOLO – and a TEA PARTY ADVOCATE who’s so tired of our federal govt. KILLING THIS COUNTRY I PRAY FOR CIVIL WAR !!

69 posted on 11/30/2013 1:22:40 PM PST by IbJensen (Liberals are like Slinkies, good for nothing, but you smile as you push them down the stairs.)
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