How the heck are shopping figures up??

So this is the first year i wasnt able to afford to do anything for xmas and its the same for many of my friends/acquaintances/co-workers. many of us didnt even bother to get a xmas tree or decorate since it seems like a waste. This isnt a sob story or anything im just genuinely curious as to how people are affording these things? the real unemployment rate is around 16% from what ive seen. we were lied to about the improvement in the housing market. and more and more people seem to be losing their homes.

Now, i live in NYC and am in a middle class neighborhood and i can safely say that there is nowhere near as many decorated houses as there have been previous years. The place that sells Christmas trees around here is usually empty or has sub-par trees by this time but earlier today when i passed by and had a chat with the owner he told me that he sold 20% of what he usually does, you could tell too since there were a bunch of GREAT looking trees there. I havent been outside of NYC in the past month or so and im not really sure how the situation is in other places but something definitely doesnt seem right about the numbers were getting fed, Anybody else in the states notice this?

We are being lied to. Accept that. Then decide what you are going to do about it.

reply to post by MastaShake


I read the same figure the other day and laughed outloud.

YOU are being spoodfed a lie!!!!
THEY NEED you to beleive that everything is alright.


"Go back to sleep!!
Be happy with your slavery".

"Everyone else is spending, if you aren't then YOU are the one with the problem"

They are pulling out all of the stops right now because they know the hour is at hand.
The time of reconing is almost here and they are scared #less.

reply to post by Screwed


I figured as much really but i dont see how they expect to get away with this. i cant even imagine how many suicides are going to occur this year from parents who are depressed that they cant buy gifts for their children.

I know what you mean, when I have been out in town shopping in the build up to Christmas it certainly hasn't been the usual elbow to elbow, in fact it has been anything but elbow to elbow.

I went Christmas shopping (veggie wise for the Christmas dinner) with my usual dread and fear, as it seems to me that type of shopping brings out the worst in some people *shakes head* and yet this year the stores where empty, but not as usual of fruit and veggies but of shoppers..

It certainly came as a shock to the system to go Christmas shopping and see bored checkout staff.

So where they get these figures and seemingly false hope from I have no idea, my concern is that we'll end up seeing a spate of businesses going into administration in the coming weeks..

I hope I am wrong, especially for the souls that will find themselves without work, but I do feel January is going to be a very hard and harsh month.

How can the global economy can be so bad ? And how can they be so dumb...
Bankrupt a planet...it all seems like a bad joke

reply to post by MastaShake


ONE SIMPLE ANSWER: Government subsidized business and purchases.
Thank you government for helping all the inept so that the price of MY milk goes up.

I can only speak from a UK perspective (we are seeing the same uplift in retail sales this year as well), but you have to look at this in context...

For example, while some sections of society are still struggling (the lower paid, those with high debt, unemployed etc) others are not. I actually found last Christmas harder than this year and the kids have had the best one yet. But then, I have little to no debt and I am employed in a decently paid job.

There will always be those that struggle and those that don't. I don't mean to "piss on your parade", but you unfortunately seem to be in the former. It is a sad state of affairs, but it would appear because you're finding things hard, you have translated this into

"Well, everyone else must be finding it hard so how can people afford Christmas?"

Sadly, not everyone is in your boat, many are getting on just fine. I feel for you though chap.

reply to post by MastaShake


[cue sappy violin music]
Or maybe this will be an opportunity to come back to center and realize what is truely important in life.
Maybe in the absence of plastic crap from china or the newest latest greatest Nike Air Jordans made by some 5 yr old Maylasian Girl making ten cents a day working 18 hours a day with one piss break,.......maybe, just maybe,
instead of committing suicide, we will recognise that we have always already had the greatest gift of all right under our noses......eachother!!

[Music fades]

reply to post by SSimon


It's all about GREED. i nearly threw up in my mouth last month when i saw an article about some billionaire buying a 88 MILLION dollar apartment for his daughter

finance.yahoo.com...

The seller says the proceeds are going to go to charity but that is just a load of bullcrap.

reply to post by MastaShake


I think they are including the rich with those numbers. Or, there are a lot of people who are still getting the tree because they have small children and they were saving up all year for this. This is the main holiday where everyone , even the poor, go all out.

Originally posted by stumason
I can only speak from a UK perspective (we are seeing the same uplift in retail sales this year as well), but you have to look at this in context...

For example, while some sections of society are still struggling (the lower paid, those with high debt, unemployed etc) others are not. I actually found last Christmas harder than this year and the kids have had the best one yet. But then, I have little to no debt and I am employed in a decently paid job.

There will always be those that struggle and those that don't. I don't mean to "piss on your parade", but you unfortunately seem to be in the former. It is a sad state of affairs, but it would appear because you're finding things hard, you have translated this into

"Well, everyone else must be finding it hard so how can people afford Christmas?"

Sadly, not everyone is in your boat, many are getting on just fine. I feel for you though chap.

I know not everyones in my boat, to think that would be foolish. but i DO know that there are alot more people in my situation then previous years. Just walking around my neighborhood is proof enough of that.

I cannot speak for all I can only speak for myself. My wife and I really only buy stuff for our son. Some stuff has been bought throughout the year, a little bit more recently. We do get each other a little something, and our tree is several years old (obviously it is an artificial tree).

I did get a little extra purchases for some charities this year (not saying where or what that is personal). I am lucky enough that both my wife and I still have jobs that pay a decent wage. I have been doing everything I can to improve my own work so that if something happens they see value in my employment. We are not rich and in fact fall to the lower end of middle class. We do however not have ourselves over stretched which has helped us in a lot of ways. I am not saying others here are over stretched, but I know a great deal of people are due to either personal decisions or things outside of their control. I am not here to bash anyone for that, but it does hold a lot of weight when it comes to more being spent.

I do though think over all we spent more this year than last. Next year though things will be different, it has nothing to do with money just personal choice. Some things need to be taught in other ways, one cannot learn to fully appreciate what they have unless they have less. Again this is a personal choice being made as a parent. I am sure that without getting into detail many will understand what I am talking about.

Raist

reply to post by stumason


perhaps that's how it is where you live, but the OP is dead-on right as i see it- holiday shopping is vastly reduced this year in the states. you can see it everywhere.

i work at a university in california. this year they made several employees go to part time and accept mandatory furloughs. this happened to many employees across the board where i work, and has been worsening for all california universities the last few years.

the reason i bring this up is that i had to really change the way i shopped for christmas. i made sure my son got some presents that he really wanted but then i had to really cut down everywhere else. my wife and i agreed we couldn't exchange gifts. last year i bought her pyjamas and a small diamond necklace. this year we have to keep that money in our family.

and like op said, it's startling to see how many fewer christmas lights are up in neighborhoods.

and i'm certainly open to accept that in england and other parts of the world people are spending more money than ever on christmas, but i don't believe that shopping is up in the US. many people i work with have drastically cut their spending, the unemployed are not spending, many many businesses are closed and likely those business owners are not spending either. that's a lot of people!

i'm happy to see this thread, S&F op, because i have been thinking this all season. when they say more people are spending money this christmas then i think it's BS disinformation to make us feel compelled to spend money we don't have and put us in debt.

What my family did was draw names for who we would buy a gift for so Christmas can be more affordable for those that can't afford buying for everyone. We've done this for the past 3 years no problem. I'm sure a lot of other families have plans like this so that they can still exchange gifts, so I'm surprised that the sales figure is that high. I kind of don't believe it. I definitely don't believe it is an indicator of a strengthening economy.

I'm certain that I'm not responsible for the spending. I also went into town last night, Christmas Eve, and I didn't see anything resembling large crowds of shoppers. Black Friday wasn't even as busy as it had been in past years.

Time to get dressed and head to The Great Wall for my annual Christmas Chinese lunch, and movie. Probably going to see the one about the horse that opens today.

Merry Christmas to all...

I don't know what's going on in NYC but here on Long Island the economy is booming. Stores are packed, sales are up, restaurants are mobbed. Oh yeah and we have the lowest unemployment of any major metro area in the US.

Long Island has always had an extremely high cost of living and as such this "recession" is business as usual to us.

These are a couple pics i took earlier of my block. i have NEVER seen it like this, its the same no matter which direction i walk in. there arent even any cheap lights/reefs on the doors


and yes, im sure the areas where the cost of living is high seem fine because all the unemployed/underemployed people have gotten kicked out of their homes. If you take a drive out of long island and come to say queens/brooklyn you will definitely see that something is wrong

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Originally posted by MastaShake
I know not everyones in my boat, to think that would be foolish. but i DO know that there are alot more people in my situation then previous years. Just walking around my neighborhood is proof enough of that.

It stands to reason that most in your area will be a similiar socio-economic strata, so will likely be experiencing the same problems, to a greater or lesser degree...

It's like being a fish in a pond that is running out of food. You look around you and other fish are also going hungry, you then assume, based on the available evidence, that all fish must be hungry. What you can't see is the pond in the other field, where the fish have plenty to eat. Nor can they see you, works both ways I suppose.

I'm not saying there aren't people struggling (and I wish that everyone wasn't and we were all happy) I am just pointing out that because some are, not everyone is, hence the sales figures.

reply to post by MastaShake


I've been out many times this weeks to different cities around where I live not Christmas shopping but just picking up stuff I need for every day life. Not once have I had to stand in a long line. Maybe 2 people ahead of me at the most. They only had one or two small items also.

Yesterday I was shocked when I went into Target to get rawhide chews for my dog and there weren't as many people in the store as I would usually see on Christmas eve. Again no long lines.

Yet when I came home I saw two conflicting stories on my internet news. One saying that Saturday sales were booming and another saying that retailers were saying the sales were sluggish. I came back a few hours later and the story about booming sales the link wasn't not working.

I don't believe the ecomony is picking up. I do think a lot of big ticket items were bought with newly acquired credit cards. It takes a bit to get a new credit card after a bankruptcy but they will issue them as they know that person can't file again for another 7 years.

The working persons wages haven't gone up in this country for a few years. I'm hard pressed to find anyone that makes above minimum wage that has gotten a raise that wasn't gave back for the cost of health care to their employer. Yet food, heating, gas has gone up. They say Americans aren't saving again. So I will assume we are having a plastic Christmas this year. But as before the credit only goes for so long then we will be back to where we were in 2008 and 2009 where the bottom falls out for the consumer again. But fear not the rich won't care and don't worry.