National Consumption Day

In better times, 26% of us would go out today and buy shit for ourselves. These days it down to 11%. But hey! It's up from 9% last year! Wa-hey! This is the benchmark we use to define the health of our economy? I suppose it is.

Does Germany have a national consumption day?
Does Japan have a national consumption day?
Does Algeria have a national consumption day?
Does New Zealand have a national consumption day?
Does Bangladesh have a national consumption day?
Does Paraguay have a national consumption day?

I really don't suppose to know all their national holidays...but my guess is...no.

I do admit -- I went out and consumed this morning. I went to Bikram Yoga in an attempt to keep the Thanksgiving stuffing in check, and I think overall I did a good job of it this year.

Yep, I thought today would be a perfect day to get out there -- cold, a holiday of sorts, a day off, and I supposed I'd have no company on the roadway.

Boy, was I wrong.

Minivans with Samsung and Panasonic wares strapped into the back seats. Trucks with appliances in the back. I passed the Best Buy and wondered how all those people who were turning into the lot were even going to find a spot. My guess is that today, more fat women will burn more gas today than during any other day of the year -- as they endlessly circle the parking lots of our consumption centers looking for that close-in stall.

What we fail to understand, collectively, is that Thanksgiving through Christmas retail sales run about $754,276,600,035 on average, in a $14,352,192,883,060 economy. 4%. It really ain't shit, but it's all we can do to pin our economic hopes on these sales. The other 96% doesn't garner nearly the same attention that's lavished on post Thanksgiving sales.

I liked the fact that I spent the day yesterday eating a vegetarian meal (although I deep fried a turkey), today I worked it off at yoga and then blogged about the crush of consumerism going on all around me. Here I sit and it's rather quiet today, no football on TV, trying to think about what the rest of my day will bring. A nap? Does the pot garden need tending? Rake leaves? For me, it takes very little in the way of consumption to survive, to thrive. Yes, I own a computer, a TV (not yet HD), cars, bikes, a rake, etc., but since 2007 I've offed a large volume of personal possessions and I've not once looked back. I don't collect things anymore; no stamps, no beer bottles, no trinkets, no strawberry-themed kitchen gadgets, no magazines, nothing. What I like is to own things that can be used to produce other goods. Wort boiling equipment. Tools. A quality, US made pair of scissors.

Everything being purchased today, this Black Friday, virtually everything, cannot be used to make other things, or they have no utilitarian value. Electronica. Teapots. RC airplanes. Perfume. A hoe.

There is value in consumption; I mean, at some basic level we all have to do it. When it becomes wanton, then I take issue.