The Rage Diaries

Hey, did you know ...

... that I'm posting regular features at Filthy Commerce already?

Today's offering: the debut of "Social Capital," an advice column that tackles the sticky messes that arise when money and manners collide. Answers include actual research and interviews with people who know more than I do.

Go read! And keep me in mind for any of your " ...oh. Crap"-type questions involving friends, family and finance.

What else are the little people for, princess?

'Tis the season: Phil and I are loading up the TiFaux with holiday movies and unwinding after our hectic days by watching and heckling them, one by one. Last Thursday's showing was a particularly risible little film, A Christmas Wedding, starring Sarah Paulson as The Drip, Eric Mabius as The Blockhead She's To Wed and Dean Cain as The Guy She Should Have Run Off To Aruba With But Won't.

The plot was clearly grown in a test tube; DNA contributors included Preston Sturges, InStyle Weddings and Donna Van Liere (the woman who "wrote" the "novelization" of The Christmas Shoes). Usually, these holiday films are good for giving Phil and I a good laugh or twelve as we notice unintentionally sinister set-ups or patently ridiculous plot developments or actors' obvious "Just give me the check" performances. But this movie just made me exceedingly cranky.

This could be a very good idea

McDonald’s Corp. is offering a money management program to its more than 500,000 unit-level employees in the United States, company officials said Thursday.

McDonald’s partnered with Visa Inc. to offer the “McDonald’s Practical Money Skills” program, which includes a budgeting guide to track expenses and access to an instructional video and an online resource center at www.practicalmoneyskills.com/mcdonalds. The materials, which are also available in Spanish, are based on Visa’s financial education program, "Practical Money Skills for Life."

-- "McD Offers Budget Advice to Workers," Nation's Restaurant News, Dec 4, 08

Given the paucity of personal-finance classes in most U.S. public school systems, and given the tremendously diverse nature of much of McDonald's workforce, this could end up being a very good way to educate several different segments of American society. I've been poking around the online resources, and they include a budgeting journal and some helpful loan calculators.

I'll be curious to see how McDonald's promotes the program among its employees -- it's one thing to offer it, but another to make your teenaged workforce think realistically about money.

Pick-a-fight Friday ... Are you what you drive?

Have y'all seen this totally vomitous Lexus "December to Remember" ad yet? The ad that's basically like, "Hey -- remember how the reason of the season is to make other people seethe with jealousy over your wretched material excess? Now go buy a Lexus and relive those good times!"

Compare and contrast that with Subaru, which is blanketing the primetime airwaves with ads touting its Share the Love Event: if you buy a Subaru before January 2, 2009, the company will make a donation to one of five charities: the ASPCA, the Boys and Girls Club of America, Habitat for Humanity, Meals on Wheels or National Wildlife Foundation. See? You can purchase a new car and share the love with your fellow man!

It's a genius campaign, because it makes the would-be buyer feel good about their purchase. So there's a recession on? You're giving to the needy even while you drive away in a new car!

Both Lexus and Subaru have rolled out commercials that are designed to appeal to very precise consumer segments. And this makes me wonder: do we really catch the pitches from these companies? When you choose the cars you drive, do you take the brands' public profiles into account? Do you feel some auto brands better reflect your values?

Time is money -- and this recession year, we're shorter on both

The median number of leisure hours available each week dropped 20% in 2008, from 20 hours in 2007, to an all-time low of only 16 hours this year. This continues a trend which has seen America’s median weekly leisure time shrink 10 hours - from 26 hours per week in 1973, the first year we tracked it.

-- The Harris Poll: Leisure Time Plummets 20% in 2008 - Hits New Low

The factor cited in the reduction of leisure time:

We have a theory. As the American economic situation worsened, people who were worried about their jobs spent more time “just checking in” via computer or wireless device. While our respondents didn’t consider this as time spent working, they also didn’t count it as leisure time and landing instead in a nebulous grey area.

Also, as leisure time shrinks, Americans appear to be indulging more in solo activities. Four of this year’s top five choices are typically done alone: reading, watching TV, exercising, and computer activities. Reading, watching TV and exercising all increased this year, while computer activities dropped 2 points. While this may seem counterintuitive, since our research indicates that US Internet penetration is at an all-time high, it does add credence to our theory that Americans may be spending just as much or more time on computer activities, yet are considering this time as neither work nor leisure.

So we may be goofing off just as much as usual -- we're just doing it all online, alone, between surfing job listings and articles on staying employed. Ah, Internet -- perforating the boundaries between work and play for us all.

Another entry in the No Sympathy Sweepstakes

In "Wall Street Wives Had the Richer, Now They've Got the Poorer" (LAT, Oct 25, 08), we learn:

In interviews with several Wall Street wives whose husbands' big earnings are in jeopardy, they describe the pain of walking through malls and boutiques -- how it hurts knowing they can't grab a few things for themselves that might catch their fancy.

And the whole story is really about how a lot of upper middle-class people are shocked -- shocked! -- to find out that they're not really rich after all. But in reading the story, days after looking at the stories of people who spent themselves into crazy debt and hours after reading about bargain-mad people who trampled a man to death, then lunged for the sales ... I am beginning to detect the construction of a new stereotype. It'll depict women as craven, pennywise and pound-foolish, and somehow, they'll be to blame for whatever consumer spending issues roil the economy. While their husbands, the poor fools, all work their fingers to the bone just trying to keep the spendthrifty harpies happy.

Some might argue that it makes sense to point the finger at women: Women allegedly determine how to spend 83% of American consumer dollars. But it still makes me uncomfortable to paint a portrait of a nation in economic crisis where the culprits are primarily female and fixated on silly little concerns like homekeeping. That gets a lot of other parties -- the ones controlling banks, for example -- off the hook.

Keeping it classy, bargain shoppers

There was one detail in "Wal-Mart Worker Dies in Black Friday Stampede" (NY Newsday, Nov 28, 08) that made me pause:

Though rumors circulated among the shoppers that someone had been badly injured, people ignored the Wal-Mart workers' requests that they stop shopping, move to the front of the store and exit.

And then I read "Worker Dies at Long Island Wal-Mart After Being Trampled in Black Friday Stampede" (New York Daily News, Nov 28, 08) and tripped over this:

Before police shut down the store, eager shoppers streamed past emergency crews as they worked furiously to save the store clerk's life.

"They were working on him, but you could see he was dead, said Halcyon Alexander, 29. "People were still coming through."

It's true that prices this weekend are crazy low ("Retailers Cut Prices, Early and Late," NYT, Nov 28, 08). Honestly, I'm surprised there are not more reports of injuries as Americans trample and claw their way to great deals. As for what this sort of mob behavior says about us as people ... Valley Stream, Long Island boasts a median household income of nearly $173,000. I'm not sure you can use an excuse like "the Average Joe is hard-pressed for necessities" in a scenario like this.

ETA: I also don't think this is a clear-cut "Wal-Mart Is Evil" story. I was reading the sales fliers yesterday, and places like Macy's, Target and Toys-R-Us also had clear loss-leader deals going on. This might have happened at any store, I'd guess. That it did happen says something about the mindset of some American shoppers.

ETA ETA: And now there are reports of shots fired at a Toys-R-Us , out in Palm Desert, CA? WTF, shoppers?

You're making it hard for me to sympathize

There is an emerging trend among national newspapers to try and depict the so-called "average" person in the midst of financial crisis. The appeal of such a story is obvious: it's meant to grab you by the lizard brain and whisper into your fearful little ear, Two missed paychecks and that could be you.

My problem with these stories? I'm likely to respond with No, it won't.

Pre-Thanksgiving Throwdown: Black Friday ... yes or no?

My plans for Friday are unambitious -- they involve the couch, the stack of books I have on reserve at the library, and a big bowl of my mother-in-law's delicious Holiday Potatoes. (And a portable defibrillator, because have you seen what goes into those potatoes?)

But I know these are hardcore bargain hunters for whom the Friday after Thanksgiving is the culmination of everything's they've trained for. They're the ones who are up at midnight for door-buster sales, or attaching spikes to their elbows to better negotiate those crowds around the Wii, or brandishing flyers like they're the 95 Theses of Retail. They're the Black Friday shoppers, an elite corps of savvy spenders.

And I know that there are equally committed people who will observe Buy Nothing Day. These folks are protesting the rampant consumerism and more-is-more mentality that seems synonymous with Christmas.

So, my throwdown question to you: Which do you do -- Black Friday where you get the bang for your buck, or Buy Nothing where you refuse to buy into the pre-holiday hype? Or do you go a third way?

Santa, now powered on 10% fewer cookies -- or 1.6% more

From Kevin Coupe's The Morning News Beat, a pointer to the Conference Board's holiday spending study. According to their survey: the average amount of money Americans plan to spend on presents is dropping 11% to $417 per household. There are some variations there -- for example, families on the West Coast are expected to fork out a scant $376 compared to those big spenders in the upper Midwest (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin) who are expected to spend $550.

However, the National Retail Federation's got its own set of numbers, and according to them, American families will spend $832 on their holiday shopping this year, a 1.6% bump over last year.

Surveys and polls are imperfect indicators, because there's no way we media consumers can be sure of how the survey respondents were chosen or what demographic factors are at play. But what we can take away from this exercise: look at who's coming up with these numbers and ask what reason they have to disseminate them. For example, it makes sense for the NRF to contend that American shoppers are bravely holding the line against recessionary measures. And perhaps it makes sense for the organization that supports business management and the Consumer Confidence Index to put out the kind of numbers that underline a need for cost-cutting within certain companies.