People have CUT back a lot in the last five years.

The recession, high gas prices and the generally failing economy(according to the Jeremiah’s on this and other Liberal oriented sites)caused Black Friday sales to *only* rise by 8% over last year, to 10.5 Billion dollars spent.

The only people having a bad year are those who refuse to adapt(American car maker’s, Bank’s), those who were stupid enough to buy a house with a sub-prime loan that was adjustable(knowing full well they had no business getting a huge loan on their piss ant salaries), and those idiot’s who think they are trained stock brokers(buying and selling stock for quick profit, instead of solid, long term investment).

This country carries way to much debt, but thats because the boomer’s and their kids have never been told ***NO*** when they whine and cry and want something shiny. But the countries that hold our debt won’t sell us short because it would cost them trillions, so they will keep dealing with dollars.

A fool and his money….as the old saying goes.

But usually I buy local.

I remember a few years back when I was working IT for a midsized company. Our bandwidth went in the toilet the Monday after Thanksgiving. We were using a web-based Accounting program, so this was a direct assault on the productivity of those actually working.

I took it upon myself to start to block access to, among other places, Amazon, Ebay, Overstock, and a few other mega-on-line stores. You shoulda heard the howl that went up in that office. I became the bad guy because Accounting couldn’t do their job.

When a couple of the people complained to me, I told them to go over to Accounting to explain to them why they couldn’t do the job because YOU need to look at shoes from Nordstrom’s.

I didn’t make that many friends that day, except, of course, the people in accounting and the people who sign my paycheck, so there’s that.