The easy availability of credit has created what Robert Manning calls our Credit Card Nation, where we are encouraged to shop until we drop.
In the aftermath of the terror attacks of Sept. l1, 2001, President Bush made that point shamelessly when he told the American people that the best thing they could do in that traumatic period was to go shopping again. He knew, even if most Americans don't, that it is their non-stop consumption that drives the economy. Without it, many believe, the terrorists could have won.
"In fact," Manning writes in his seminal book, "with the ascendance of the post-industrial economy, bank credit cards have become an essential technological and financial tool for commercial transactions as well as an increasingly important macro-economic tool for U.S. policy-makers. ..."
Shopping is our real national pastime, but it comes, as he warns, at a price that is not advertised in the malls.
"The idyllic wonderland of consumer credit too often belies a reality of unknown sacrifices and enduring debt. ... It is this 'cognitive disconnect,' with its siren song 'Buy, buy, buy. It could be free, free, free' that constitutes the cornerstone of the Credit Card Nation. "
And so it is not surprising that holidays are used or created as national events to spur consumption. They are rituals for shopping. None is as important as the first day after Thanksgiving, which is the day set aside for overindulgence at the kitchen table. The next day now has a name—"Black Friday"—so called because it is supposed to be the day when the whole retail sector goes into the black financially.
After months of financial volatility, Black Friday 2007 was seen as a make or break event. Would it send a cathartic and upbeat signal that the economy was back? Would the shoppers be counted on to launch the Holiday shopping season with a big bang?
In the malls, preparations had been made for five months with advertising dollars set aside for promoting sales and deep discounts to lure the shoppers, who had almost been boycotting the stores in September and October.
The hype machine went into overdrive with TV ads having the expected effect of getting TV news coverage, especially in local markets, actively building anticipation.
I was watching in Boston and saw perky local news "correspondents" stirring a buying frenzy with upbeat reports on manic consumers waiting feverishly to rush into malls the night before.
It was, in the words of Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping, a "shopopocalyse." His crusade against out-of-control consumption is pictured in the new film What Would Jesus Buy?
This highly relevant film was not on TV, of course, because our media is deeply complicit in promoting and encouraging mindless consumerism through newspapers, commercials, and newscasts.
This is a well-practiced formula mirroring TV's promotion of the war in Iraq, as the line between selling and telling disappears. The only negative note was the fear among some that toys might be unsafe because of lead or other dangers. Some 26 million toys, most made in China, had been recalled in 2007, a sign that the regulators were as asleep on this front in the economic wars as they were on Wall Street.
The real danger may not be lead in the toys but another type of lead in our heads that leads to denial on the part of millions that we can go on with well-cultivated, addictive, crazed, consumption habits.
Bill Bowles writes about this on his CNI Blog:
"The problem is that many of us have been force fed with a diet of nothing but passive, uncritical consumptionism. Indeed, we are addicted to the stuff; breaking such powerful habits is what this is all about; it's about getting people to think critically again about what's going on and why and what, if anything, we can do about it."
Were most media outlets connecting any dots between the annual shopathon and the "severe recession" that many economists are forecasting? Were there any warnings to the public to save their rapidly inflating money for the expected hard times? Was there any explanation of how prices have sharply risen and, thus, the discounts—often "teaser" rates just like the ones offered sub-prime loan victims—are really not all they are cracked up to be?
No way.
Where were the stories alerting us to this coming calamity on the front pages? They weren't there. It is not in their interest to carry them, clearly it's a big "No-No." It gets worse. MTV pointedly rejected an ad from the Cultural Jammers Network urging a "Buy Nothing Day." The network complained, "The station that markets itself as the voice of hip youth has censored the burping pig."
Many of the shoppers this season are charging it even though all the credit card companies have jacked up rates driving the real cost of shopping higher, and even though credit balances are at an all-time high. The companies are just waiting for them. The day after Christmas, VISA will report on how much business was done. In years past, they called it "disappointing."
And then in January, the returns will start as the bills come due. Experts—including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers—are warning that the credit card system itself may be the next to fall.
So what happened? Was the day the big success you thought it was when you relied on the impressions reinforced by all the upbeat coverage?
Yes, Black Friday showed better results than expected, but the retail industry afterwards said it still expects a weak Christmas. Remember, stores were open longer than ever, and the advertising and hype were more pervasive. Also the discounting was deeper and the bargains more extensive. We know the sales were up, but what about the returns and expected credit card defaults?
The New York Times sent reporters into the stores and found "desperation rather than celebration." So, in the end the verdict on Black Friday was that it did not change the economic picture.
Danny Schechter directed the film In Debt We Trust. His new book on the financial crisis Squeezed is available through stopthesqueeze.org. Comments to Dissector@mediachannel.org
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