Posted on 10/20/2013 4:52:00 AM PDT by Kaslin
Did you hear the big news? American retailers are carrying out a “war on the American family.”
Seriously. That’ s how some media hosts and pundits are characterizing the fact that many American retailers are planning to keep stores open on Thanksgiving Day.
And then there’s social media that all abuzz about the shocking, horrific developments. “Because I believe in family, I pledge to NOT shop on Thanksgiving” the much-shared Facebook “avatar” reads. “If I’m shopping, someone else is working and not spending time with their family. Everyone deserves a holiday.”
Well, how about this: if I’m shopping in a store – on Thanksgiving Day or any other day – then, yes, somebody else is working. And given that roughly one-third of the entire population of the United States is not working at all right now; and that the country’s labor force participation rate is at a thirty year low; and that the consumption of the federal Foodstamps and Medicaid welfare programs is at an all-time high – I’m thinking that if somebody is ambitious enough to work, even on Thanksgiving Day, then that’s a good thing.
Beyond that, this ginned-up crisis is foolish, for several important reasons:
A) This is not new: converging Thanksgiving Day, the “holiday” season and retail shopping has a long history in the U.S., dating as far back as the 1920’s with President Herbert Hoover. Given that he and his predecessor President Franklin Delano Roosevelt both governed during a market crash and the “Great Depression,” they both saw the overall economic benefits of robust retail sales. FDR is generally credited with forging the so-called black Friday “tradition,” and retail businesses has been perfecting it ever since. And, in case it matters, Hoover was a Republican and FDR was a Democrat – so the whole holiday shopping craze, distasteful as it may be to some, is actually very “bi-partisan.”
B) Even though the fussing is happening today, Thanksgiving Day shopping started last year: I don’t recall seeing or hearing the “war on the American family” last year. But national retailers Aeropostale, Banana Republic, Big Lots, CVS, Family Dollar, The Gap, Kmart, Old Navy, Sears, Sony, Starbucks, Target, Toys'R'Us, Walgreens and Whole Foods were just a few of the businesses that began newly expanded Thanksgiving Day operational hours in November of 2012. Why is this suddenly offensive now?
C) Participating in Thanksgiving Day shopping is optional: Maybe another way to say this is “what part of ‘free’ do you not understand about the ‘free market?’” So many Americans – even many “conservative” Americans – don’t even think of what a profound blessing it is that we are not forced to purchase retail goods at a particular store or on a particular day of the week (at least not yet, anyway). Our consumer choices and freedoms contrast dramatically with the ways in which people once lived in the former Soviet Union, or as people live still today in places like North Korea and Cuba. If shopping on Thanksgiving Day is distasteful to you, then plan now to NOT do it. But seriously – is it a worthwhile expenditure of energy to protest those who might wish to shop on Thanksgiving Day, or those retailers who might wish to serve the interests of those would-be shoppers?
D) Retail is an important part of the U.S. economy, and winning in retail is already difficult enough: Because of lots of really bad public policy decisions that Americans have enabled their state and federal government agencies to make over the last many decades, for at least the last ten years or so we’ve been in this horrible situation where consumer spending is often the biggest energizer of the entire national economy. America is mostly adverse to chopping down trees for timber or drilling oil for the global market (Canada, New Zealand and Australia, by the way, have been quite happy to fill those niches while we’ve sat on the sidelines), and we don’t manufacture nearly as much as we could, so consumer spending has taken a dangerously prominent spot in the overall economic picture and retail success is more important than ever.
Add to this the fact that both conservative and liberal Americans seem to love retail boycotts. Liberal Americans boycott Starbucks because the company won’t prohibit customers from legally carrying private firearms in to their stores, while conservative Americans boycott Starbucks because the company’s CEO supports homosexual marriage. Liberals boycotted Whole Foods earlier this year because their CEO stated the obvious – that Obamacare is destroying the employment market – and conservatives have boycotted Costco because the company extends employment benefits to same-sex partners of their employees. The fact that Starbucks, Costco and Whole Foods are all egalitarian companies with some of the most generous compensation packages among all service industry employers doesn’t seem to matter. Many Americans seem to have a high need for being outraged and retailers are frequent targets of their emoting. Do we really need to create more of this on a day that is so important to our families?
E) There are far more egregious things about which to be outraged: You’re looking for something to rage about? How about a President who promised cheaper, more plentiful healthcare for all, yet whose signature “reform” law is driving healthcare costs upward and doctors and nurses out of their jobs? How about a Congress that exempts themselves from the Obamacare disasters, but won’t give the rest of the American population a reprieve? Do these injustices even belong in the same sentence with “shopping on Thanksgiving Day?”
Is Thanksgiving Day shopping really a problem in the grander scheme of things? Really?
If you think it is ridiculous to be found wishing our country had a culture godly enough to agree, voluntarily, to thank God on a day set aside for such gratitude, then we have far less in common than I thought.
BTW, thanks for teaching me that new rule. You know, the one where if I post on a lefty article and fail to explicitly disavow all the corrupt, commie assumptions of the text, I will be presumed to be a communist sympathizer until I clarify otherwise. Good. I’ll remember that. Just for you. :)
I never said that, or anything even remotely like that - and frankly someone ought to slap the sh-t out of you for even saying that.
you are conflating......on purpose.....because you ranted off without understanding what the thread was about. YOu are now lying your fanny off about what I said and what I meant, because it's the only way you can justify your response. Go ahead, deceive yourself if it makes you feel better....
Hi, retailers! I’m not spending one damn dime this holiday season beyond necessities...as usual. It’s more fun to sit around and watch everyone else run around like chickens with their heads cut off...
Same here. And quite frankly, with so much of “corporate America” funding and enabling the DC socialists, from entering into crony, corrupt deals that support Obamacare to catering to the depraved homo agenda, I’m really having a difficult time giving a single, solitary damn about their well-being.
Heaviest travel period of the year and biggest day of the year for restaurants feeding families. It is the biggest holiday for extended family reunions and Christmas is next. Lots of people work both holidays. People sleep in parking lots Thanksgiving day to get the freebies and sales at midnight. I don’t. I rarely shop on the weekend because I know that Tuesday is quietest day in retail.
Really? You said in post #59, concerning my comment about thanksgiving, that I was “just wasting folks’ time with a ridiculous drive by comment.” How else am I to take that? You are clearly suggesting my comments were ridiculous. I’m still sitting here scratching my head trying to figure out how a comment about honoring Thanksgiving is not relevant to a thread discussing the deterioration of Thanksgiving observance.
Furthermore, any reasonable reader can see you are inferring I’m siding with the communists, when in post #43 you purport to correct my wrongheadedness by informing me that only a “moron would think it’s good to agree with the anti commerce communists atheists in order to achieve it.” I don’t mind being called a moron. Some of the people I love best have done the same. But what on God’s green earth made you think I agree with commies on anything? Nothing I said gives you any warrant for thinking I did. That was your mistaken assumption (or else a very reckless phrasing on your part) and you won’t own it. Your choice.
BTW, just to make it clear, in my original post (responding to YOU, not the article), I specifically recognized the “free exercise of commerce,” which was put in there to preempt misunderstanding of my real position, and given with a phrasing I thought you, with your erudition and accomplishments, might enjoy. My ever so big mistake.
So no, I’m not lying about what you said. You’re just not hearing how what you said sounds to the person you said it. That’s *your* problem FRiend, not mine.
Anyway, I get it. You had a round in the chamber today and you were going to use it on somebody. My bad luck to think I could make a friendly comment to you. I thought we had enough history you would appreciate my effort to write up to your level. Boy was I wrong. No hard feelings. Sigh.
Peace,
SR
PS: For the record, I am a “dude,” but I’m way to old to actually feel comfortable being called that. :)
So there are no corporations that are run by people who view themselves as citizens of the world and think that sovereign nation-states are an old-fashioned, dangerous, and racists notion of a by gone era?
Are state laws regarding the 40 hour work week or employee safety Socialism? Would you prefer Chinese style working conditions in this country?
What idiot in the wide world of sports is pushing this idea that retailers are screwing or at war with Americans? The retailers around here a really hurting and sales aren’t resulting in increased numbers. Several major stores are shutting down as I write this. What a bunch of horse hockey.
Hey why not be practical. Thank the good Lord for shoppers!!
One size fits all is not wisdom either. The Chinese people put up with this because they have Chinese mores. If they get more Western mores, they won’t.
With the Commies we have in government, pretty soon the holiday we’re going to have is “May Day”. And they’ll force people to march in parades for that one.
Besides, I would think these days most Conservatives would dread Thanksgiving with the extended family, because it means having to put up with the brain-dead Liberals in the family.
I work in retail and we already work seven days a week....daily hours are often 6:00 morning til late evening over Holidays so those two days off are very much a welcome relief.... it’s always been great to have Thanksgiving off and Christmas day to be with family.
The store I work in refused to give into the pressure last year and remained closed....this year they followed the crowd. It’s a great disappointment.
Then you were not listening. There were plenty of people outraged last year over this.
Personally I do not plan to go shopping on Thanksgiving. I plan to watch the Lions lose that day. And then have leftovers.
I still work retail part-time...Holidays are the worst IMO. Customers are very demanding today and expect ‘McDonalds Drive By Service” What I’ve really noticed is how rude customers are to each other over the Holidays now. It’s insane how they behave when in the store.
I’ve worked enough retail in my life to see the changes in the customers.....and is one of the reasons I’m seriously giving thought to leaving retail. Not to mention the caliber of those you have to work with now.
I’ve worked til midnight getting the store ready to have to come in the next morning at 5:00 over Holidays. By Thanksgiving day you’re pretty exhausted and look forward to the day off with family....now that’s history....all the more reason to change my job and find something without all this insanity!
I refuse to go anywhere near a mall during Holiday Season.
I’ve worked both high end and lower end retail...it makes no difference during Holidays...human behavior does not change between the classes of people at Holiday. The public turns into raving animals then....far more demanding and rude even to each other.
>> “all the more reason to change my job and find something without all this insanity!” <<
.
No, not food stamps...
<....”I refuse to go anywhere near a mall during Holiday Season”...>
Can’t say I don’t blame you....it’s tricky to manuver today because you have so much theft in and outside the stores. Another change I’ve seen over the years.
Now thieves wait in the parking lot til someone puts there purchases into their trunk. They have contact with each other throughout the stores as well via their cell phones. So they can monitor where, what and who to mug once they’re in the lot...but even worse...they wait til you go back in the store and simply pop your trunk or break in the window.
Packages are no longer safe in your trunk...
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