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• Tuesday, December 2, 2008 12:45 AM

  Disagree with the premise

  I respectfully disagree with this premise on so many levels.

  First of all we ARE the economy. Many of the very people you are, hypothetically, discussing in your article, work retail. So shopping, to them, is crucial. In the current environment it is undeniable that you are saving lower-income retail jobs that almost certainly would be eliminated by no later than the second week of December, if shopping falls off this year. That allows a lower income person, regardless of responsibility or irresponsibility, to do things like pay their bills and, guess what, even pay their mortgage. Hence they stay in the home.

  Second of all saving is essential. But it also has to be backed by some level of realism. No human being, no matter how responsible, is going to allow their family to sit around the tree with no presents. Period. That's not the way human behavior works, and certainly not the way parental behavior works, whether it should or should not.

  The goal, therefore, should be to LIMIT both the number and price of items obtained for Christmas. The idea then would be to go in when prices are at their lowest which would have been: Black Friday.

  Seriously. While I'm fine, I know several people in tight financial situations who were bragging about their self-control on Friday when others showed up at 4:30 a.m. to buy Christmas gifts. You know what they're doing today? Whining about the fact that the deals that were there on Friday no longer existing, complaining about the fact that stores are cutting down on their inventories this year, and wondering how they can find a deal large enough to get what they need.

  Black Friday, parituclarly for those with a tight budget, was the PERFECT time to shop.

  Furthermore, all evidence indicates, as you well know, the shoppers who did show up on Black Friday knew what they wanted, knew what the price was, bought what they had intended to buy and then left the store.

  I'm sorry but that sounds like smart shopping to me. The notion that a bunch of poor, fat, attention-challenged morons went into the stores at 4:30 a.m. on a Friday to shop in the middle of a recession because they somehow WEREN'T thinking about money is a convenient myth made up by those who either: a) enjoy looking down on the lower class or b) simply do not realize just how MUCH planning the majority of those who ARE struggling have put into their holiday purchases.

  —libertyson Read libertyson's other letters
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