The Rage Diaries

When Jason tags you, how are you supposed to say no?

The rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged me. (Here.)
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog. (I would like to hope that publicly linking them is enough.)
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

So, six random things, after the jump.

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?

Thank you, and you, and you, and you ...

I hope all of you are having a wonderful holiday* and that you've been able to observe fine and upstanding holiday traditions such as listening to "Alice's Restaurant," or watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, or watching the Dallas Cowboys play, or fighting with someone you usually love because they're eying that last slice of pie.

Oh, and that giving-thanks thing. I hope that's part of your day too. I'll be giving thanks for all you readers and commenters. Happy Thanksgiving.

* Or, in the case of readers outside the U.S., a crackin' good Thursday.

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.

Pick-a-fight Friday ... Fast food. Yes or no?

For the past two-and-a-half months, my Mondays and Wednesdays have been crazy: I work all day, ferry home, sprint across the island, cook and gulp down dinner, fling on a Speedo, then sprint back across the island to lifeguard night-time lap swim. This last Wednesday, the delicious pizza Phil was preparing wasn't ready in time for me to have any before I hit the pool, so I sped out the door and hit McDonald's for dinner. Total cost of my meal: $1.83. I paid for it using the change in our car.

Now, I'm pretty good with our food budget, but I am not good enough to get us down to an average cost of $1.83 per person per meal. As I ate my hamburger and watched the lone lap swimmer scream in surprise upon jumping into the icy depths of the outdoor pool ... for a moment, I was like, Why do I bother? Why do I bother tracking grocery prices, or shopping loss leaders during weekly sales? Why do I beat myself up over buying turkey bacon full price when I could just ditch any consideration of balanced nutrition and feed myself for $6 a day at McDonald's?

Then I remembered I liked vegetables and the moment passed. But it did raise a question. Like many other people, I have spouted the "Just bring your lunch to work!" party line without question. I've done the calculations for food budgeting based on premises like, "Well, if I'm eating lunch, I'm eating at Cafe Centro, and that's seven bucks a pop" or "If we're eating dinner out, it's at Toomie's, so we're looking at $35 for the two of us." And then, yeah, it's cheaper to buy groceries and eat in.

But if you throw McDonald's into the equation ... well, it's a different argument.

So my pick-a-fight-Friday topic, the one that's been bouncing around in my head since I picked up dinner on Wednesday night, is this: Fast food -- a way to stretch the food budget, or something to be avoided as a regular part of your economic diet?

If Thursday Styles was an opera ...

... it would have to be called Gottendammerdumb.

Two stories had me rolling my eyes today:"Cost Cutting, aka Mooching," in which two media professionals decide to nickel-and-dime their budget to offset the panic over their big expenditures (a house in Marin county, their retirement accounts). Entire passages read like a collaboration between Goofus and Gallant:

We decided that the only way to get a handle on our expenses was to swear off credit cards. The all-cash diet meant pay as you go, for every single thing except, of course, the dress I secretly planned to buy for the Los Angeles party. We allotted a daily budget of $100 — we wanted to ease into this, after all — to cover food, clothing, gas, gym, dry cleaning, entertainment, our daughters’ weekly allowances and the footlong rawhide bones to which our dog, Otto, was contractually entitled.

As for the mooching mentioned in the title, if you were hoping for any insights on the fraught interactions between friends with money and friends without ... well, we should all live in hope.

However, the article provides an underscore to the second piece that made me go "Hmmmm," a personal-finance piece titled "Failing Home Economics." The basic premise:

As Americans attempt to perform cost-benefit analyses of their needs and behaviors, they are whittling pennies from cable bills only to squander dollars on gas driving miles to discount stores, or on coupon-spurred splurges for nonessential items, like Cheez Whiz or organizing supplies.

Please read the opening anecdote about EconoWhiner founder Jill Andresky Fraser going into vapor lock at the grocery store and overstocking on one item while overpaying for another; the piece is studded with further examples of irrational spending behavior. Apparently, people get weird and self-jutifying about money. Who knew?

I read the first piece and thought, "Why didn't the Slatalla/Quittner household use Quicken and the envelope system for better budgeting?" and then I read the second, and I wondered, "Why not put together a price book during one week's shopping, then use those numbers to gauge bargains in subsequent weeks?"

Both pieces underscore something that I expect to see get a lot more play in the coming months: many self-identified (upper) middle-class people have no personal finance skills. I look forward to seeing the inevitable Hipster Guide to Personal Finance.

Whale-on-it Wednesday ... Hand-crafted gifts. Yes or no?

Owing to the confluence of two factors -- a preference for Kobo candles and a year of thinking consciously about reducing, reusing and recycling -- I have something like 18 glass containers with lids stashed in shoeboxes upstairs. I have big plans for 12 of them -- stick some LED tea lights in them, pop them in paper bags and line my walk with non-flammable luminaria this holiday season. And I recently brushed another four glass candleholders with glue, covered them in pink or purple glitter, and figured they'd do for a deconstructed Advent wreath. (Or for decorating a sixth-grade Twilight fan's room. Either or.)

I am a bit of a perfectionist, and when I combine that with my decidedly amateur-level skills at handicrafts ... look, I know I'm asking for trouble. You will all understand when I say that I don't necessarily love the 1.0 version of my Advent candleholders. I wouldn't feel comfortable giving them as gifts.

However, I do dig a great handmade gift. I'm not likely to receive one -- I have weird tastes, and my friends who are crafty are also not masochists, so there you go -- but I do admire a beautifully-knitted scarf or hat or a gorgeous print. One of my favorite gifts is a framed photo my friend Elliott developed for me in grad school.

And therein lies the rub with handmade gifts. Taste is such an intensely personal thing. Making something for someone is also intensely personal -- the thought and effort involved represents quite an investment on the part of the giver.

In the Toecovers entry, ae told this story:

[L]ast year, I went out of my way to make a personal and gorgeous gift for my Mother-in-law. She is always hard to shop for -- she has everything. So I was really pleased to come up with something special and unique for her. In my eyes, it fell flat. I might as well have gotten her slippers.

Which perfectly demonstrates the hazard of handmade gifts from one end: when you knock yourself out for someone and they can't be arsed to care. On the flip side of that, what do you do when you get something that looks like it belongs in Craftastrophe?

So I'm throwing out this question to the commenters at large: What's your stance on giving or receiving hand-made gifts?