Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

In addition to this being a day to spend time with loved ones (and family LOL) and to reflect on what we are grateful for, today is also Black Friday eve. Meaning, it's the day before one of the most important shopping days in the year. While over the years with internet sales and people shopping early its importance has gone down a bit, it is still a day that makes or breaks some stores for the ENTIRE year. This year has been especially bad for some, with the whole economic crisis and people losing houses and jobs. The logical thing to do this Christmas is to cut back spending. This is actually the worst thing to do in a situation like this. You instead need to SPEND. I know it's counter intuitive, and I'm sure some people are giving me a dirty look, but listen to me and it will make sense.

Follow up:

Back in the 1930s, an adman named Earnest Elmo Caulkins created a theory called 'consumer engineering', and as obvious as the concept may seem, the idea was, create products that appeals to people's tastes, so that they'll buy things they want rather than need. At the time it was pretty revolutionary actually, and this is what lead to the need for industrial designers (create products people want to buy).

The 30s of course, was the time of the Great Depression, and consumer spending was at an all-time low, which makes sense since people were barely able to eat--but here's what Caulkins said that makes the most sense (I'm gonna paraphrase here):

When you reduce spending, that means that stores that carry items don't make money, which means the store has to fire people or close. This means there are more people out of work, and more competition for jobs. And if it gets bad enough, people who design/build/ship these items also being to go out of business and it spirals down and down until you have lots of people worse off than before. Just look at the auto industry. No, I don't believe they should be bailed out since they had a terrible business model of hocking gas guzzling road monsters and not thinking about alternatives, but because they are doing so badly, previously secure jobs like selling cars, repairing waranteed cars at dealerships and working at factories all go out the window.

So what's the real way to save the economy? Spend money. Even a poor idiot like me who constantly (and talk to my friends it is constantly) whines about having no money can find the odd 30 dollars here or there to blow on something I want. When you spend money, consumer confidence goes up, then the stock market goes up, then your 401ks go up, people get to keep their jobs and the world is a happy shiny place.

But Bwillet, what do you know? Everyone says this is going to be worse than the Great Depression!!!! Um no. People like to overreact, but the reality is, no matter how bad things get, it will NEVER be as bad as the 1930s, mostly because of the policies enacted during the 1930s. Back in the 30s there was no gurantees for banks. Meaning anything you put was gone. But today we have FDIC insurance, which means even if every bank you keep sticking your money in sinks like the Titanic, you're money is still safe, as long as it's under 100K--and that's changed to be under 250K for the next year and a half as a provision of the Bail Out package. Second, there was no Social Security, no Food Stamps and no Welfare. So even if you're near homelessness, there are ways to survive. You're in for the fight of your life when you apply for them, but if you stick it out long enough you get the benefits you need (once again, not easy in any stretch of the imagination, but possible).

So help out the economy by going tomorrow and buy lots and lots of stuff. But at local stores, buy local products, get stuff for everyone you can. Consider it your patriotic duty.