How to Stop Black Friday

If you know anyone who works stock at the big box stores like walmart and target, they'll tell you the truth: all the Black Friday "deals" are near-worthless crap ordered specifically for desperate suckers. Yep, that $50 laptop and $200 big screen TV are worth even less than you paid for them.

It's not technically a scam, but it oughta be illegal anyway

From Monday Morning Quarterback Peter King Nov. 21:

Employee of the Week

Anthony Hardwick, Target, Omaha, Neb. James B. Stewart's column in the Saturday New York Times on the excess of the Thanksgiving business season, and the 29-year-old Hardwick's place in it, should be required reading.

Hardwick earns about $25,000 a year as a shopping-cart attendant at Target and a printing supervisor at OfficeMax. He was told last month he'd have to report to work at Target at 11 p.m. on Thanksgiving night, and work until 4:30, with him needing to report to his OfficeMax job at 5 a.m. on Black Friday. Hardwick took to Change.org to post an online petition to see if other Americans shared his distaste for the holiday shopping season cutting into family time on Thanksgiving.

"A full holiday with family is not just for the elite of this nation -- all Americans should be able to break bread with their loved ones and get a good night's rest on Thanksgiving!'' Hardwick wrote.

He is clearly thankful for his jobs in such a poor economy, but he said that doesn't mean he should be forced to work when common sense says Thanksgiving should be a family day. The argument that he should be thankful for any job and should be willing to work any time, he told Stewart, is "the same argument that was used when 7-year-olds were working in coal mines.''

The mania of consumerism has now spread in many stores to being open on Thanksgiving, with some stores open all day. Why does Consumer America whittle away at it more every year? What's next? Black Veterans Day? I understand Black Friday and the mania of getting good deals, particularly for families who need to watch every nickel. But Black Thanksgiving? A black mark on our society. Good for Hardwick for calling an end to the madness -- in his own little but effective way -- and for Stewart for writing about it.

But there's a cure!

From Digby:

Speaking of Black Friday, the economist Robert Frank had a terrific piece in the New York Times yesterday about how to end this Black Friday nonsense: the 6-6-6 plan.

In recent years, large retail chains have been competing to be the first to open their doors on Black Friday. The race is driven by the theory that stores with the earliest start time capture the most buyers and make the most sales. For many years, stores opened at a reasonable hour. Then, some started opening at 5 a.m., prompting complaints from employees about having to go to sleep early on Thanksgiving and miss out on time with their families. But retailers ignored those complaints, because their earlier start time proved so successful in luring customers away from rival outlets.

Those rivals, of course, didn’t sit idly by. Their inevitable response was to open earlier themselves, restoring competitive balance. Other retailers began opening at 4 a.m., then 3 a.m., and, eventually, at midnight. Several malls have promoted “Moonlight Madness.” Last year Toys “R” Us opened at 10 p.m. on Thanksgiving. This year, Wal-Mart will do the same. The costs to store owners and their employees and families are enormous: millions must now spend time away from home on the one occasion that all Americans, regardless of religion or cultural background, share as a family holiday.

These costs might be worth bearing if they led to even larger gains. But when all outlets open earlier, no one benefits. Few people actually want to shop in the wee hours, and the purchases that do occur then are presumably offset, dollar for dollar, by reduced sales during normal business hours. Even the shoppers who turn out for early openings seem motivated primarily by a fear that others might snap up bargains before they get there. But if all stores opened later, there would be no fewer bargains than before. In short, we have a classic collective action problem, an arms race.

Black Friday (or, more accurately, Black Thursday Night) is only hours away, so it’s too late to do anything about early openings this year. But we can start thinking about what can be done to protect our future Thanksgivings. Many societies employ “blue laws” — laws that mandate closing times, usually on Sundays. But there is a simpler, more flexible, way to approach this problem. Inspired by the 9-9-9 proposal of the Republican presidential contender Herman Cain, I call it the 6-6-6 plan — an across-the-board 6 percent national sales tax (on top of any existing state and local sales taxes) in effect from 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving to 6 a.m. on Black Friday.

This plan would leave both stores and consumers free to decide for themselves whether middle-of-the-night shopping is worth it. Even if some retailers decided to stick with the early openings and even if some shoppers showed up, the country would reap a significant benefit. As every mature adult realizes, we have to tax something, and the revenue from my 6-6-6 plan would make it possible to reduce taxes on other activities that are actually useful. Best of all, it would encourage Americans to spend Thanksgiving night where they really want to — in bed.

Maybe if people shopped after a night of proper rest and in a calm, patient manner without fear of being pepper-sprayed, they'd think twice about the probable value of items priced ludicrously low.