I'd rather get a less-amazing deal and not have to deal with crowds. So my gift to so-and-so will be slightly smaller... they'll live. I do most shopping online anyhow.

I liken these folks to the flag pole sitters of the old days. There is really little return for what they do but plenty of hype. By the way, please give us some notice on that Wilshire Blvd run.

If I want something on Black Friday I will order it from Amazon or Walmart online or whatever, I will not walk into a store for anything on Friday (except for work, my gas-station doesn't close.

His comment about privilege seems odd. People who have enough money that it isn't worth braving the hordes to save a few bucks - surely those are the "privileged"? I feel almost as sorry for the shoppers as for the workers.

It's been decades - like 20 or 30 years - since I last went shopping on Thanksgiving weekend, or in the last few days before Christmas. Why would you do that to yourself?

In solidarity for Michael Brown, people are agreeing to...clog [stores] without buying

Oh, yeah, that'll hit the people they're mad at. Idiots...

I work for a discount retailer that doesn't offer any additional sales on Friday and is closed for the holiday today. We're told it's because our corporate office wants us to spend time with family during the busy fourth quarter, but I suspect it may have to do with Thanksgiving blue laws in the state where we're headquartered.

Either way, when conversation with customers this week turned to our Thanksgiving closure, the response was a relieved "oh, GOOD!" each time. People seem to see it as an act of defiance against our mall neighbors' ludicrous holiday hours. I agree with your conclusion that most shoppers aren't thinking about the costs (to themselves and low-level retail workers), but those that have considered the implications express a lot of empathy.

I just don't see how any of it's worth it. My personal rule is and has been that if I'm not being compensated, I don't leave the house the day after Thanksgiving. With few exceptions, I mostly shop online anyway.

For some people, mostly women, especially people who are elderly or grew up poor or lower middle class, shopping is a form of entertainment.

My mother was this way, and it bored me to tears. (She is actually still this way, but too elderly now to get much out of it, except tired)

If businesses want to cater to this crowd to keep them loyal customers the rest of the year, or because it enhances the bottom line, .... more power to them.

I suspect they are trying to provide a shopping *experience* for those who are into that sort of thing.

I am not going to rail against this as some sort of social ill, anymore than men watching football on Christmas, New Years, etc.

Black Friday would be a nightmare for me. Even after much preparation I don't do well in crowds for more than an hour or two. I am not a hermit or curmudgeon about it but I now do most of my non-food shopping online.

That said, I will never look at Wilshire Blvd the same way again.

When Lady Godiva made her famous ride through Coventry, she rode sidesaddle as all proper ladies then did. This is the origin of the cheer. "Huzzah for our side!"

I don't go anywhere near a retail store from mid-November to mid-January. I can't stand crowds, and since I have to mail 90% of my Christmas gifts anyway, it's easier to shop online.

If there's one thing that Americans love more than Mom, apple pie, pets, kids, SUVs, football and Jesus, it's bargains.

"shopping is a form of entertainment."

Yes, I'm not sure why people don't grasp this concept.

> I'm not sure why people don't grasp this concept.

Pinsky, a guy who's carefully observed the verges of courage and addiction, once described it as "a thrill-seeking behavior"... He said that every time you buy something, on an animal level, you're thinking about whether or not the exchange is great, good or bad for you (and for your trader).

I once read a bio of some Beverly Hills-type princess, identity forgotten, who'd spent some enormous percentage of her youth shopping. Not building a collection of anything, or composing a meaningful assortment of personal goods... Just buying stuff with Daddy's money. The story was much like the drug-befogged remembrance of a faded rock star, and she was similarly ashamed.

Black Friday is not privileged; it is ruthlessly democratic. Any knucklehead of any class can trample over somebody else for the first big-screen TV.

Now I'm glad I'm working all day tomorrow.

Anybody watch the new show 'Mr. Selfridge' which is about the midwestern American guy who opened a dept. store in London in the 1910s?

Pretty interesting to see how Selfridges made shopping an entertainment experience which was considered too egalitarian by typical British shops of the day. Too bad he died in debt because of an appetite for gambling and showgirls.

But shopping on Thanksgiving or Black Friday ain't my cup of tea, mate.

(If I want exposure, I'll run naked down Wilshire Boulevard.)
Count me in with Nelson & parabarbarian: It'll take me some time to get a plane ticket, but count me "all in".

"If I want exposure, I'll run naked down Wilshire Boulevard."

Video please.

I'll try to get the day off, but I might not be able to on short notice, and I live 1,000 miles from Wilshire.

You couldn't pay me to step into a store on Black Friday, much less on Thanksgiving. (Well, you could, but it'll cost you at least 10 grand.)

"shopping is a form of entertainment."

Cable TV tapped into the entertainment aspect of shopping early on. I don't know if QVC does it (I can't stand to watch TV shopping) or if HSN still does it but in the 90s I saw the Home Shopping Channel for the first time and saw how they kept info on customers to use in subsequent phone calls to reel the elderly in.The live calls on-air with customers were something else. 'Oh, Myrtle, how are you, and how is your arthritis?' 'You remembered!' (cue the violins).They always inquired as to the caller's health, or how the grandkids were doing. Well, damn, those HSN hosts 'care' so much I'd better buy some stuff...it was probably legal but certainly not ethical. It reminded me of TV ministries.

I remember arguing with my mother over how much the hosts 'care' about the shoppers. I kept telling her they were looking at data on a computer that came up with customer records, but she believed that they remembered the details about all their regular customers and worried about them. It was like a soap opera. From a sales perspective it was genius. It made buying stuff you didn't need exciting, and made you new friends to boot! The elderly are easy prey for techniques like these.

Drove me and my father nuts.

"it was probably legal but certainly not ethical."

Perhaps the elderly should not have control over their own money, for fear they might spend it on unapproved merchandise?

People buying things of their own free will is not exploitation, whatever the sales pitch.

This is just another clueless socialist dig at the grubbiness of capitalism, and the plebeian tastes of most consumers.

I never said the elderly shouldn't have control over their own money. My mother didn't have dementia, she just loved to shop and stuff all the closets in the house :-) When she started to dig into the IRA account that was supposed to last her a while, I did advise her to weigh large purchases/home improvements against her present and future financial needs. I never intervened and tried to control her money, I have no right to do that.

Maybe you won't think it's fine, when it's one of your loved ones being charmed on the phone by a huckster. If you deceive people to sell them things, it's not exploitation? I'm not talking about only TV shopping gadgets but snake oil remedies as well.

Is that amount of savings really worth leaving the family. . .?

Keep in mind that for some people, leaving the family is one of the benefits.

Maybe you won't think it's fine, when it's one of your loved ones being charmed on the phone by a huckster. If you deceive people to sell them things, it's not exploitation? I'm not talking about only TV shopping gadgets but snake oil remedies as well.

Posted by: crella at November 29, 2014 12:46 AM

The definition of "deceit" is a very tricky one. Charming someone into thinking they need a new car or a new toaster, is not quite the same as tricking them out of their credit card number and using it to commit fraud.

You don't get rid of the former without treating adults like children, and the latter should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

The whole concept of freedom rests on the assumption that you don't have to appeal to some government authority to justify a legitimate "need" before you are allowed to spend your own money, or travel, or make a speech.

In short hucksterism is a problem where the solution is worse than the original problem.

My mother didn't lose her rights, when at some point in the last ten years, my financial judgment became better than hers.

I resist the temptation to micromanage. You should too.

i gave her advice once, I don't appreciate the assumption that I tried to control my mother's finances or life.

As she was seriously ill, on dialysis three days a week and back at the hospital one more afternoon a week for drainage of ascites, and home care when it would be indicted would be a very expensive proposition, pointing out to her once that nurse visits or private house cleaning/maid service would be more valuable to her then than all the Rachel Ray/Martha Stewart/random junk she was filling the closets with was not out of place, in my opinion.

"The whole concept of freedom rests on the assumption that you don't have to appeal to some government authority to justify a legitimate "need" before you are allowed to spend your own money, or travel, or make a speech."

Yes, of course it's a basic freedom to use one's own money as on sees fit, but would it have been fair had she spent every last dime on useless items and then left my husband and I to pay for her health care and living expenses for the remainder of her life? She had the right to fritter away every last dime, yes she did, but would it have been the right choice?

As I said I advised her once to be more careful with her money, but took no steps to restrict her or otherwise interfere with her autonomy.

"Yes, of course it's a basic freedom to use one's own money as on sees fit, but would it have been fair had she spent every last dime on useless items and then left my husband and I to pay for her health care and living expenses for the remainder of her life? She had the right to fritter away every last dime, yes she did, but would it have been the right choice?"

Of course not, but one of the most fundamental freedoms we have is the right to make poor choices.

There is no Central authority that I know of that has a Santa Claus type list, with *useful* items on one side and *useless* items on the other.

Is there some reason your mother would not have been eligible for Medicare and other government programs if she truly had no assets?

My mother in law went through a hundred thousand dollars in a matter of months after she and my father in law divorced.

We did not bail her out.

It isn't your junior high sense of "fairness" that I have an issue with.

It is with your naive assumption that Gubmit should have a solution by forbidding sales pitches for useless items or by treating your mother automatically like an incompetent minor rather than you taking a more active role in helping your mother make better decisions.

How about I follow you around the grocery store and throw everything out of your cart that has no proven nutritional value? Would you like that, or do you think that just maybe you should be allowed to make your own choices, even if they wouldn't be mine?

First you say that I shouldn't micromanage, then you say I should take a more active role in helping her make better decisions...which is it?

There is little dissuading a shopaholic. Like any other addiction, pointing out why it's not good thing will do little.

Where in the hell did I say I want government to do something!? I said I dislike the way they pitch things, how they keep info on regular customers and pretend to worry about them. I really hate their smarmy lies. I never said I wanted the government to treat my mother as incompetent.

Thanks for the cheap shot about my "junior high sense of fairness" . If not bilking the elderly by pretending to be their friend is "junior high" I'll stick with it rather than the alternative.

You really presume much too much , the picture you've painted of my relationship with my mother couldn't be further from reality.