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What a great photo
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Now, as the economy is trying to heal itself and return to normal, consumer spending has dropped off. This should be no surprise: When unemployment is rising, people save more because they're worried about losing their jobs. This is prudent and sensible; what's irresponsible is politicians urging visits to the mall when saving may be the wiser option.
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One of the big worries for stores is what to do with the mounds of items they still have to sell. If 75 percent off before Dec. 25 didn't make people splurge, will even bigger deals afterward do the trick? Another problem is that shoppers shunned gift cards this season. That means they are less likely to return to the stores after the holiday.
A weblog about urbanism, technology, & culture.
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This is a weblog about urban issues, technology, & culture published by Jordon Cooper since 2001. You can read about me and the site here and if you are looking for one of my columns in The StarPhoenix, you can find them here. If you've got questions, concerns, or an interesting link for me, let me know
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One aspect of the depression was a worldwide agriculture glut. Prior to the tractor, a farmer needed one acre of animal feed for every two acres he farmed in salable crops. A tractor meant freeing up a third of the farmland for more crops, which just drove prices down, and created an uneconomic situation for farmers.
Similar to the “Frankenfinance” of synthetic CDO’s, default insurance and auction rate securities, the thirties were rife with currency speculation driven by unregulated finance types. Stable markets and credit were destroyed by these weird inventions that nobody really understood. 80 years later, different finance products, but the same results.
I remember, in 2004, well after the dot com bust, standing in the checkout line at Fry’s (a local retail chain). If you are not familiar with Fry’s, there is one line and dozens of checkers (not like a supermarket with many lines – one per checker). Naturally, the line has a “good spirit”; since there is no “bad line” with the slow customer with a handful of tatttered coupons and multiple over-limit cards. So, conversations often ensue, and we talked about how we missed the last “generation” of technology. And how these are like “dog generations” – three or four years. We all joked how we had no money for the past three years, since we just got jobs. So this was our first chance to buy new toys. Similarly, we are in a mode where nobody will buy stuff for the next few months, but, in late 2009, will go out and buy a new generation of stuff. Cars wear out, technology changes, and next Christmas will be a banner holiday.
As far as buying stuff, today was a busy day. I saw lots of shoppers (on a day that’s a pseudo-holiday) and I expect to see more shoppers tomorrow.
[...] looking at DSLR’s and some other cameras (a Fujifilm S2000hd), we got into line. Mike O left a great comment that mentioned the same experience in Fry’s a couple of years ago but with only one long line and [...]
Mike, I agree about the lines and Wendy and I were having the same discussion last night after Mark and I were at Future Shop.