PSoTD

Ouch, California.

As bad as it is with stores playing up Santa to push merchandise before Christmas, I find it even more abusive to see this Circuit City email advertisement this morning:

Did Santa Let You Down This Year?

Really, are stores going to try blame to move their stuff now?

For the unemployed.

Just how many middle class folks are going to take a stock or fund investment and sell in the next two weeks so they can get the loss applied to their taxes.

Eventually, that's what people do when they feel that their desires and needs are constantly deprived by those with moneyed access to government.

Just a reality check for businesses that seem to be focused on screwing the American customer.

They make a fine gift for the wannabe hippie blogger you know, but this video commercial is kinda creepy.

One of the things that seems to be going on is a review process by individuals in the economy as to what others are thinking or seeing in the economy, from their standpoint. Wednesday I met with a client, and he was curious as to how I assessed how the economy would impact our business. Short answer is that I expect the economy to be worse, and worse longer, than the six months after 9/11, but that it was a mixed result back in 01/02 since we do annual agreements, our customer base is looking to us to find them more cost-efficient mechanisms than they currently have, so we benefit from both continuing revenue obligations and the search for lower-cost results. On the other hand, those benefits won't mean much if we're in a full-fledged depression, so I have to admit I'm always leaning for the more rosy future.

This isn't much different than questions I ask friends of mine in other businesses, or questions I've been asked before in the past few months. I think American small business people are trying to determine a consensus outside of the news delivery systems, particularly the business news delivery systems, because those systems don't seem to understand or recognize big trends until they are already upon us. In addition, they aren't particularly located in our geography or socio-economic ranges, so there's a doubt of their understanding and a distrust of their motives on any news about the economy. In short, we're all kind of gauging each other to figure out what to believe, and weighing that more heavily than we have done in the past.

I swear, we're eventually going to call the time period from 1946 to 2008 "The Sixty Year Blip".

According to a September survey on consumer anxieties over higher fuel and food prices from the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University in Ames, 34 percent of respondents said that they were likely to raise more of their own vegetables. Another 37 percent said they were likely to can or freeze more of their food. The cousin to canning and freezing is the root cellar.

“I’ve been doing local food work for a long time,” said Rich Pirog, associate director of the Leopold Center, who conducted the study. “And I’m seeing an increase in articles in various sustainable ag newsletters about root cellaring.”

According to Bruce Butterfield, the research director for the National Gardening Association, a trade group, home food preservation typically increases in a rotten economy. In 2002, the close of the last mild recession, 29 million households bought supplies for freezing, drying, processing and canning. Last year that number stood at only 22 million — a figure Mr. Butterfield said he expects to rise rapidly.

On the other hand, Nassim Taleb is saying some pretty scary stuff about the economy, and it's believable. From Charlie Rose.

I wonder why some companies don't offer free sets of printed christmas cards as long as they can put in their product placement. A local business, even one with international reach such as Hershey, could probably include an attractive and clever coupon on the back of the card.

guess next week is when peak starts building for people going into places like the UPS Store to send packages for Christmas, but I think the one I go to daily has been staffed up considerably this week in anticipation of the regular holiday push, and when I've been in, the place has been empty, or near to it. Just another one of those signs of what kind of Christmas this is going to be for retail.

Sure, maybe the video conferencing industry is going to explode as organizations are looking to cut travel costs, but the convention/business hotel industry is going to get a major asskicking the next few years...

It seems to me that in light of this news:

The U.S. credit-card industry may pull back well over $2 trillion of lines over the next 18 months due to risk aversion and regulatory changes, leading to sharp declines in consumer spending, prominent banking analyst Meredith Whitney said.

I've thought about this idea a bit the past few years, haven't really sold myself on it or decided it was terrible, but I do think it's worth some government study.