Black Friday was well-named, but not for the reasons usually given. This year in particular, it was a black mark on our society.
Thanksgiving should be a day when we spend time with our families and enjoy each other's company. There is something wrong with our society when we support retailers who open their stores at 9 or 10 PM on Thanksgiving evening. There is something wrong with our society when we start lining up outside these stores on Wednesday evening and spend Thanksgiving day camped out in a long line waiting for them to open, and when our Thanksgiving celebration consists of some relative bringing us our Thanksgiving turkey as we wait on line.
What's wrong when our society when a man collapses of a heart attack in the middle of the floor and people just walk over him? What has happened to our humanity and our sense of values? It's true that several nurses tried to save the man by administering CPR, but my point is that nobody should have stepped over the man. Even if we couldn't help him, didn't we know enough to stand back and give him some air?
I keep reading about how our dysfunctional government is catering to the upper one percent and sticking it to the rest of us. If this is what the rest of us have become, we deserve what we are getting.
And why are we waiting on line in the first place? Usually it's to save a few dollars buying a bottom-of-the-line product that's about to be discontinued and is being dumped on the market by the manufacturer.
Sure, the advertising flyers are filled with loss leaders at attractive prices--if you can get your hands on them before the store sells out the half-dozen that they have on hand. But have you noticed that the really good stuff never goes on sale, and sometimes the store has jacked up the prices of the good stuff--which is what they really want to sell you--over what they were a week ago?
Our local newspaper ran a photo of a young man who had been waiting on that long line grabbing a Samsung HDTV when he finally made it into the store. Based on my personal experience, I wouldn't wait on line five minutes for a Samsung product, although I'll concede that a certain highly-regarded, advertising-free consumer magazine has given good ratings to some of their smaller models. But did you notice that none of the really good brands in the larger sizes that people actually buy were on sale? Where were the Sonys, JVCs, Toshibas, and Panasonics?
I considered buying an Amazon Kindle. Some stores had the cheaper, black-and-white ones on sale, but not the new, highly-popular Amazon Kindle. You want it? You'll pay full price.
One more example: I was interested in the Canon EOS Rebel T3, a very good entry-level digital SLR that normally sells for about $550. Just about everybody had it on sale for $480. Why do you suppose it was priced so low? My guess is that it's being replaced by the "i" series (T1i, T2i, and T3i), which starts at $700.
But so what? The T3, at least, is a good product. I could have gotten on line for 24 hours or so and snapped it up for $480 at any one of a number of retail stores in my area. I could also have bought it online for the same price. In fact, I could have bought it online as late at 5 PM on Friday. Why weren't people snapping it up? Probably because they were buying the heavily-promoted junk. (Full disclosure: I didn't buy it because I have an older EOS Rebel and couldn't justify the upgrade, as hard as I tried.)
Retailers promote Black Friday heavily, and carry a small stock of loss leaders to get you in the door, because they know that once you're in the store, you're going to overspend on other products with healthy profit margins. Retailers have to make a fair profit, of course, but let's not be fooled into believing that they are giving anything away.
If you want to save money on Christmas gifts, either for yourself or your family, stock up on them all through the year when the items that you really want come up on sale. For example, I have two identical-twin granddaughters. We have an understanding in my family that I'm the book-giver. Daedalus Books, in Columbia, Maryland, is a clearinghouse for discontinued and overstock items, most of which are of very high quality and some of which are hard to find as well. Among other things, they have marvelous children's books. I stock up on children's books for the twins all through the year. Dover Publications is another source of great books at reasonable prices.
For consumer electronics items, you're in luck if your company has an employee discount program with tie-ins to good companies such as Sony, Dell, and Lenovo. I bought my Sony HDTV through such a program last year and saved a bundle. But here's the thing: I waited until the specific model that I wanted came up on sale, then I jumped on it.
When Black Friday comes around next year, let's use our heads and stop acting like lemmings.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
This Year's Virginia Election Campaign: The Worst Ever
I am so glad that the election campaign in Virginia is over. Virginia has always been know for its ugly, negative election campaigns but this year's was the worst that I've seen since moving to the state in 1986.
When will Virginia politicians learn that what I want to know is what their goals are and how they propose to achieve them? I don't need to be reminded constantly that their opponent is a crook; I already know that. I got more benefit from a 10-minute conversation that I had with a candidate for the school board from my district than I did from all of the crap in my mailbox.
I got sick and tired of having my mailbox jammed with flyers that told me absolutely nothing about why I should vote for the candidate. They went right into the trash can. But at least the flyers put some money into the postal service's coffers.
What really touched my hot button was the incessant number of phone calls. The people who program these robocalls have figured out how to get around call blocking. To make matters even worse, they've figured out how to wait for my answering message to complete before delivering their unwanted messages to my voice mail, taking up storage capacity and wasting my time when I go to play them back.
We need a way to opt out of these phone calls just as we can opt out of marketing messages by registering for the Federal Trade Commission's Do Not Call list.
To add insult to injury, this year's crop of candidates was so weak that I didn't care who won. The only reason that I bothered to vote was this: Going back to the Revolutionary War, hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens have given their lives, and millions have been maimed for life, so that I can take half an hour and walk four blocks to my polling place in order to vote. I owe it to them to vote--no excuses.
When will Virginia politicians learn that what I want to know is what their goals are and how they propose to achieve them? I don't need to be reminded constantly that their opponent is a crook; I already know that. I got more benefit from a 10-minute conversation that I had with a candidate for the school board from my district than I did from all of the crap in my mailbox.
I got sick and tired of having my mailbox jammed with flyers that told me absolutely nothing about why I should vote for the candidate. They went right into the trash can. But at least the flyers put some money into the postal service's coffers.
What really touched my hot button was the incessant number of phone calls. The people who program these robocalls have figured out how to get around call blocking. To make matters even worse, they've figured out how to wait for my answering message to complete before delivering their unwanted messages to my voice mail, taking up storage capacity and wasting my time when I go to play them back.
We need a way to opt out of these phone calls just as we can opt out of marketing messages by registering for the Federal Trade Commission's Do Not Call list.
To add insult to injury, this year's crop of candidates was so weak that I didn't care who won. The only reason that I bothered to vote was this: Going back to the Revolutionary War, hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens have given their lives, and millions have been maimed for life, so that I can take half an hour and walk four blocks to my polling place in order to vote. I owe it to them to vote--no excuses.
Monday, November 7, 2011
The Best Show on TV: The Republican Presidential Campaigns
We all owe a vote of thanks to the Republican Party for saving us from the boredom of summer reruns on TV this year. They've actually been acting like Democrats!
Those of us of a certain age will remember when the Democratic presidential nominating process was actually fun to watch. Eight or nine candidates would throw their hat into the room. Two of them, at best, would have half a brain and might actually be qualified to be President. The others were usually good for comic relief.
The real fun would come when one or two of these comedians would go to the Democratic convention with enough committed delegates to throw a monkey wrench into the process. Then the power brokers would have to adjourn to their smoke-filled rooms to sort things out and come up with a candidate that had half a prayer of winning the election. The Republican nominating process. on the other hand, was usually more like a coronation, and boring as heck.
This year, however, the Republican Party has provided us with great entertainment as it goes about self-destructing on the tube every night. (Can I still call a television a tube?) The three sane Republicans who are still left practically got down on their hands and knees to beg Governor Christie of New Jersey to run because they couldn't stomach any of the candidates. Unfortunately, Governor Christie had the good sense to turn them down. Even Republicans aren't dumb enough to board the Titanic after it has struck the iceberg.
Meanwhile, the Democratic coronation moves on. What serious candidate is going to challenge Barack Obama? For that matter, what serious candidate would want to become President when the country is in the total mess that it's in right now?
I'd be doubling over in laughter if the whole thing wasn't so sad for the country. We need a functional government and a properly-functioning two-party system, one in which both parties work together for the good of the country. This is the way that things were in the 1960s and 1970s, when moderates controlled the Republican Party and we made great progress in civil rights, equal rights for women, and environmental and consumer protection--progress that today's Republican Party would like to reverse, with the Democratic Party too weak-willed to prevent this erosion. When one party either self-destructs or takes control of all three branches of government--executive, legislative, and judicial--the country suffers.
Those of us of a certain age will remember when the Democratic presidential nominating process was actually fun to watch. Eight or nine candidates would throw their hat into the room. Two of them, at best, would have half a brain and might actually be qualified to be President. The others were usually good for comic relief.
The real fun would come when one or two of these comedians would go to the Democratic convention with enough committed delegates to throw a monkey wrench into the process. Then the power brokers would have to adjourn to their smoke-filled rooms to sort things out and come up with a candidate that had half a prayer of winning the election. The Republican nominating process. on the other hand, was usually more like a coronation, and boring as heck.
This year, however, the Republican Party has provided us with great entertainment as it goes about self-destructing on the tube every night. (Can I still call a television a tube?) The three sane Republicans who are still left practically got down on their hands and knees to beg Governor Christie of New Jersey to run because they couldn't stomach any of the candidates. Unfortunately, Governor Christie had the good sense to turn them down. Even Republicans aren't dumb enough to board the Titanic after it has struck the iceberg.
Meanwhile, the Democratic coronation moves on. What serious candidate is going to challenge Barack Obama? For that matter, what serious candidate would want to become President when the country is in the total mess that it's in right now?
I'd be doubling over in laughter if the whole thing wasn't so sad for the country. We need a functional government and a properly-functioning two-party system, one in which both parties work together for the good of the country. This is the way that things were in the 1960s and 1970s, when moderates controlled the Republican Party and we made great progress in civil rights, equal rights for women, and environmental and consumer protection--progress that today's Republican Party would like to reverse, with the Democratic Party too weak-willed to prevent this erosion. When one party either self-destructs or takes control of all three branches of government--executive, legislative, and judicial--the country suffers.
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