Black Friday. No other concept seems to be more ridiculous or emblematic of contemporary American society. Whether it’s good or bad depends on which side of the sales counter you’re standing. But we’ll get to that in a sec.
Historically, the words, “black Friday” used to mean exclusively the Wall Street Crash of 1929. But during the eighty (80) year stretch that has gone by since, the American economy has experienced numerous crashes and panics to the extent where we don’t even think about it anymore. We just deal as we are dealing now and the bailouts keep onnnnn coming.
Boom and bust cycles have been engineered by design into our economy by the creation of two financial institutions that are neither public nor part of the federal government, but whose names include the word “federal” in order to hoodwink the uninformed American taxpayer into thinking they are.
I’m referring to, of course, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, better known as the Fed and the FDIC. Two privately held entities that our economy lives or dies by. Currently, it’s dying. The economy, that is. For those of us that don’t make a living as an executive officer in either the banking or automotive industries, there will be no million dollar bonus in our Christmas stockings.
GM and the “too big to fail” bankers Goldman Sachs et al. are doing just fine thanks to the great taxpayer sponsored bailout of 2008. This round of corporate welfare currently comes in at $700 billion and counting, but it could end up costing us as much as $2 trillion.
But don’t take my word for it. If you want a fascinating explanation of the current manufactured fiscal crises and how we got here, then I highly recommend you read Bailout Nation and The Creature from Jekyll Island.
Upon reading these books, you’ll laugh (Like a lunatic in desperate need of thorazine.) You’ll flatulate. Your eyeballs will hemorrhage and pop out of your sockets. Your anal sphincter will pucker. You may even experience simultaneous explosive diarrhea and vomiting. But most of all, you will weep. Uncontrollably. And not even the FDA and CDC approved scam that is known as the swine flu vaccination will help you.
But returning to our topic, Black Friday now simply means this:
And this –
And this.
Personally, I am unable to think of anything more farcical and absurd than standing on a long ass line during the ass crack of dawn in 20°F (-7°C) for a freakin’ X-box or some other item whose availability was deliberately held back so as to create demand and justify jacking up the price tag.
If the average American had a firm grasp of the concept of supply and demand instead of spend and charge it, then those of us who have to work for a living would probably have a hell of a lot better representation in both Houses of Congress. As it currently stands, we’ve got a two party system whose members are indistinguishable from each other on either side and who represent the highest bidder.
It’s ironic. The governments of other developed nations are afraid of pissing off the voters because they fear the people. But instead of holding the “leaders” accountable for their actions, we here in the good, ol’ U.S. of A. go shopping.
I will be spending Black Friday as I usually do. On the couch leaning against my comfy backrest pillow with a good book and/or watching the boys, and, otherwise letting the rest of yooze fight it out amidst the aisles and pallets filled with Chinese manufactured junk at the local crapmart.
Enjoy! I’ll be thinkin’ ’bout ‘cha.
NB: Watch out for the dude who just took a dump in the water fountain.
Sing it, Chrissie.
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