Black Friday and Cyber Monday: The Two High Holidays of the Retail World

 

Well, here it is again, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the two high holidays of the Retail World. Thanksgiving, usual, got short thrift once again this year, stuck as it is between the "Candyween" and "Chargemas"(more accurate names for Halloween and Christmas respectively). I guess you can't really blame anyone.

 After all, it's pretty tough trying to commercialize a tradition of giving thanks for family and friends. Where's the money in that outside of inflated gas prices and plane tickets? Besides, Thanksgiving is mostly a family oriented day, punctuated with excessive eating and football, followed by food induced comas (nothing says "thank you" to the All Mighty like overindulgence and a seven point spread).

I guess what I object to the most is all the pre-Halloween Christmas hype. This year I saw my very first commercial (I kid you not) the week before Halloween! Seriously, Christmas commercials in October? I recall going into a popular local drug store in early September and seeing Halloween items on one side of the aisle and Christmas stuff on the other side! It's not uncommon to see Valentine Day items on sale in January and at the same time seeing St. Patrick's Day stuff. 

I realize that Christmas sales typically account for around 20% of all yearly retail business. In fact, the National Retail Federation, which represents retailers, are expecting sales to exceed $1 trillion dollars this year, but shouldn't there be a law or something prohibiting any promotion of a holiday before the preceding holiday? As an aside, did you know that Halloween is the second largest retail day behind Christmas? After counting candy, costumes, declarations, and so forth, Halloween brings in $13.1 billion dollars with the average consumer spending roughly $144.00 each.  

For example, no advertising of Thanksgiving (as if that's going to happen anyway) before Halloween. No Christmas commercials, TV specials, sales or anything else until the day after Thanksgiving. Now doesn't that make more sense? Let's give each holiday its proper due and respect (not to mention our frantic nerves and credit cards a break).

Speaking of Christmas, did you know that when Obama was president, he had agreed to sign a law applying a 15 cent tax to every fresh cut Christmas tree sold? As if that wasn't outrageous enough, the reason was even more outrageous. According to the Agriculture Department, the tax would apply to all "producers and importers" of 500 trees or more. The USDA went on to say that this tax was for the benefit of the Christmas Tree Promotion Board. Now just what is the Christmas Tree Promotion Board you might be asking yourself about now? Well, let me tell you.

The Christmas Tree Promotion Board is a private association of Christmas tree growers who are feeling the stiff competition from the manufactures of artificial Christmas trees (I wonder if there's an Artificial Christmas Tree Promotion Board?). Seems that the board was needing some help getting its message out about the splendors (and smells) of having a fresh Christmas tree in every living room in America. Apparently unable to obtain voluntary cooperation from within the group, they turned to the Washington and the USDA.

Fortunately, after much ridicule, the Obama Administration and the Agriculture Department agreed that  talk about taxing a Christmas tradition just wasn't politically in the spirit of the season and decided to withdraw the tax until a more appropriate time (like when the public was distracted by another holiday). Nevertheless, just why the federal government even considered a tax on behalf of a private organization for the benefit of their advertising and PR costs?

Well, the truth is that costs incurred by private corporations are routinely passed on to taxpayers. This is part and parcel for the Washington and Wall Street partnership (commonly referred to as the "corporatocracy"), which we see in the form of subsidies, built-in loopholes in legislation, exemptions, bailouts, low interests loans, and so-called "external costs". 

Collectively these are known as "corporate welfare" or "corporate socialism". Under President Biden, corporate welfare amounted to some $540 billion dollars of our money. Of course, the smaller "mom and pop" businesses are typically excluded from these forms of involuntary taxpayer subsidies.  

The bottom line here is this. Wouldn't it be nice to have the opportunity to relax and enjoy one holiday at a time rather than constantly being prompted into constantly thinking about the next one right around the corner? Of course, the message of the season has long sense been drowned out by the sound of cash registers ringing up another sale and credit cards being swiped. Besides, "peace on earth" just isn't profitable  enough is it?  

If you want to know more about this article's topic, please check out the links below. If you enjoyed the article, please consider passing it along to others and don't forget to subscribe. It's free! Lastly please be sure to "like" us on whatever platform you use to read anotheropinionblog.com. It helps with the algorithms and keeps our articles in circulation. Thank you!

White House Sidelines Christmas Tree Tax

NRF expects holiday sales to surpass 1 trillion for the first time in 2025

Corporate Welfare in the Federal Budget

Special Interests and Corporate Welfare