Tag: Black Friday

Retail Rapture – American Estimated To Spend Over $700 Billion Dollars On Largest 5 Holidays In 2015

Shopping

TheBreakaway
Zy Marquiez
January 15, 2016

“Recreational shopping is the shortest distance between two points: You and Broke.”
– Victoria Moran

The new year has begun in earnest. Goals have been set by individuals. The sun is rising on a ‘new beginning’.

With that in mind, where we travel on our way forward into the future has everything to do with where we’ve been.

Let’s see where we were financially – as a nation – in the year 2015.

What follows is an amalgamation of the biggest holidays in the American landscape, and what the establishment estimated the nation would spend as a whole during those days:

Fourth Of July

The establishment had expected $6 Billion dollars spent for this holiday

Labor Day

It was estimated that $13.5 Billion would be spent on labor day what.

Halloween

Americans planned on spending $7.4 Billion on Halloween alone. P.S. That includes $350 million dollars for pet Costumes. You read that correct.  

Thanksgiving

During Thanksgiving, which is off course now notoriously coupled with Black Friday, and Cyber Monday, Americans were estimated to spend $80 Billion.

Christmas

At the top of the proverbial pyramid of consumerism, Americans were expected to spend $600 Billion dollars.

The total estimated Americans would be spent just on those 5 Holidays was $706.9 Billion dollars. That’s nigh 3 quarters of a Trillion dollars. That’s a lot of freaking money paper!

Some will instantly say, but those are estimates and they would be right. But estimates have precedents, and while the number could be lower, it could also be higher. Especially since it doesn’t seem like Retail Rapture is ending any time soon.

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One of the main tenets of this blog is empowering the individual. In order to forge ahead, individuals, which are the foundation of society, need to be cognizant of what they do if they want to move forward – breakaway – beyond the current system that taxes every aspect of y/our life.

With that said, in order for the nation to spend nearly 3/4 a Trillion Dollars, it takes a lot of individuals to carry that out.

Ponder this: what would happen if the entire country saved just 10% of that money? That seems quite reasonable. That would be a savings of $70 Billion in one year, as a nation.

And people are saying that the economy is going to collapse? Are you kidding me!

That there is an economic descent, is of course rather obvious.  But a descent and a collapse are way different.

In any case, narrowing down this to the local, individual level, what would saving just 10% of your Holiday expenditures help you accomplish? Ruminate on that a bit. In fact, take your time and think long and hard how much saving just 10% of your Holiday money can help you building your future. There is a lot that can be accomplished given how much money was estimated to be spent.

Being cognizant of the above, where do we head too financially, as individuals, from here?

That, my friends, only you know can know.

Because the choice, is ultimately yours.

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Sources & References:
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_28424038/americans-expected-spend-more-fourth-july-food-festivities
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-labor-day-travelers-to-spend-13-5-billion-up-2-from-last-year-20150901-story.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/wait-americans-spend-how-much-on-halloween/381631/
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/analyst-black-friday-cyber-monday-shoppers-will-spend-80-billion/
https://nrf.com/news/the-long-and-short-of-americas-consumer-holidays

Retail Rapture – Black Friday

The Individual – The Foundation Of Society

What Does It Mean To ‘Breakaway’?

Retail Rapture – Black Friday

By: Zy Marquiez
November 27, 2015

“Recreational shopping is the shortest distance between two points: You and Broke.”
– Victoria Moran

The season for the reason is on the horizon! Take your checkbooks out, credit cards, paper money, and everything else you’re willing to sell to raise federal reserve notes!

All jesting over, in all seriousness, let’s pump the brakes for a moment.

As a minor prelude, this post is not meant for everyone that purchases items during Black Friday. It’s meant more for the mentality that has manifested itself around the Retail Rapture that is known as the appropriate and ominously named, ‘Black’ Friday.

Many people opt to carry out their christmas shopping during Thanksgiving Weekend. It’s what some would call the unofficial beginning for Holiday shopping.

Shopping in it of itself is just purchasing a product. That is simple enough. However, what has taken place manifested via social engineering the last decade or so to increase sales [while real media household income has fallen, mind you] has shown what levels human depravity will sink too for the latest $5 dollar toaster.

Here are an assortment of reasons that recreational Black Friday Shopping should be carefully pondered.

Saving money is not a bad thing. However, not all of the products shown are in fact the cheapest price points you could get them at if one were carrying out research of those latest products.

If you are an in-person shopper, the increase density of people that some of those shopping centers and stores have also seemingly proportionally increased the level of violence as well.

The video below details this issue rather well:

Dovetailing with that is the mindless consumerism of products purchased which people did not need in the first place. If you need something, really need it, great. Purchase it. Save money. However, if you’re maxing out credit cards [and hopefully not paying interest, because if you are, then the items purchased really aren’t as cheap as many people make them out to be if you’re going to be paying interest for months] then that might not be the most prudent thing to do. And if you’re following the crowd – literally – then that’s even worse.

The above are not judgements, these are observations of events taking place. If people want to spend money on gifts, sweet. If they want to go to places where they run the increased risk of violence given the mental me-first attitude of many in the populace, all good. If they want to put themselves in financial positions that are detrimental to themselves, fine. But the highly ironic is that many [most?] of these people that are spending money aimlessly in Black Friday and during the holidays, are the same people that will throw Corporations under the bus, when in fact they are the ones funding them. That’s not being apologetic for the corporations, but the Corporations and the shadows behind them have power because of mindless consumerism, and Black Friday is the epitome of income/profit generation for corporations. It’s highly hypocritical to want a better world, and then fund the very corporations that will and have thrown the population under the bus hiking prices needlessly, not having wages keeping up with cost of living, shipping jobs over sees, so on and so forth.

It isn’t surprising that America has become the posterchild for financial ineptitude, but that’s in large part due to indoctrination, propaganda that’s fused at the outset with poor schooling, which does not cover intelligent financial planning [gee, wonder why?]. Why would the comptrollers want you to know how to handle your finances? That would mean less profits for the corporations that would do anything, and often do, for profit, and less market share that can be tapped.  Furthermore, that has lead to a significant decrease in savings, increase in large debt expenses, half the country making about equal or less than $27,500 per year, stagnant income growth for many American families, less assets per family/individuals, and vastly smaller amounts of retirement income/savings that has lead to most folks leaning on social security as their main income stream.

How can one move forward, how can one live a better life, a healthier life, how can one break away from the matrix of control if someone chooses to give it energy in every which way? It’s an impossibility.

With that said, what are our options? We can choose to play their latest game, or we can pull the plug.

The choice is yours. It always is.

Let us part with this:

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
– Albert Camus