DrFU wrote:Red13JoePa wrote:DrFU wrote: "out-of-control" shoppers desperate for bargains broke down the doors at a 5 a.m. sale.
Unreal.
Just incredible.
What is it w/ this subculture of people who do the queueing up @4:30 AM at the store on Black Friday?
From addictionsweb:
"Addictive shopping is a form of behaviour addiction intended to avoid unpleasant reality and is accompanied by a high which causes the sufferer to lose control and buy many items for which they have no need.
The adrenaline rush, the fantasy which surrounds the episode and everything which precedes the actual spending spree all add to the sense of unreality which brings a false sense of freedom from life's problems. The compulsive shopper experiences all the general symptoms associated with addiction. . . . Compulsive shoppers believe that shopping will make them feel better.
They often shop when they feel lonely, bored, depressed or angry. Shopping stops for a while their suffering. While they are spending they experience the kind of euphoria that is similar to the 'high' induced by drugs."
The bigger the bargain, the more intense the "high." Some of the Black Friday advertised "deals" are so unreal, it would be a rush like bringing a woolly mammoth down with a slingshot. That's the theory, anyway.
Add crowd dynamics, and you get disaster.
..... and don't forget what largely enables this stupidity: cheap credit (including mortgage equity withdrawal), which (thankfully) is in the process of evaporating, hopefully forever. That means fewer credit cards (with lower limits and higher interest rates) and fewer home equity lines of credit. We are quickly moving from a situation where the limits of consumption will be mainly determined by incomes, not assets (with associated dissaving). So I suspect we'll have a lot less of this garbage in the future.
Morons will always be with us, unfortunately, but the wherewithal for them to buy 52" plasmas, H2 Hummers, McMansions, and 24' bass boats is disappearing quickly.
