Value Added?

It’s an interesting word that...Value. The word usually alludes to either money or principles. And this past week, we heard a lot about it in both respects. Unfortunately though, one seemed to come out ahead, as it seems to be doing a lot lately. More unfortunately yet, it seems to be the former, despite some rather windy protestations about the latter. Once again, the dollar seems to come first to far too many people, people of all stripes.

Over the last few weeks, the internet and all of the various “spheres” (twitter, blog, etc.) were alight with the news that so many stores had decided to open up on Thanksgiving Day to get the jump on the so-called, “Black Friday” sales. Remember all of the hoo-ha about those “greedy so-and-so” shop owners. I mean, Wal-Mart we expect it from, but even Macy’s was getting in on the act. “How dare they” went up the cry...they are taking the holidays away from these poor underpaid workers....can they not just have a day off? And then the inevitable cry of BOYCOTT!!! Yeah, we’ll show them...those damned chain store owners...yeah, we the people have the power of the pocketbook! We’ll show them. It’s a true family holiday after all. I think it’s the one holiday that pretty much everyone can celebrate, it has no religious affiliation, (not really anyway) no national one either. (Except American and after all, that’s where we are, right?) And here in the land of “Family Values”, that just won’t go. So look out you avaricious captains of industry...we’ll show you that you can’t do that on this most American of holidays. Yeah...but what really happened?

I have never been a proponent of “Black Friday”. I think it’s absurd, and brings out the worst in people. You will see normally calm people running over their neighbours to save $25 on a television set or some such thing. It was bad enough when it was done at 8am the day after Thanksgiving. But then it was 4am....then it was midnight. Now it has gotten to Thanksgiving night and in some cases, Thanksgiving Day. As my dear wife always says, they wouldn’t do it if there wasn’t a demand. And she is 100% right. I do realise that we are a consumer driven economy, but there is a dark side to this, and we are seeing it. The news reports are showing the armed guards outside some shoppes, (for shame Macy’s) the fights, and again, sadly...the deaths. Yes, yet again, someone was trampled to death by a crowd that had probably just finished saying how thankful they were for everything they had...but wanted to get to those door-busters so they could be even more thankful. So now we have another family that may not be so thankful, but remember only the sadness that this holiday can bring. But I want to again go back to my wife’s statement.

In one respect, I say that the Walton family (am I the only one in my age group that sees the irony in their last name?) and their sort doesn’t need to do this. They will make their money regardless and have a “very Merry Christmas indeed”. But you know what? This is what they do, they are business people, and the essence of business is to respond to consumer demand. So yes, the response could be...no...but I think this is on us. After all of the hue and cry about the stores opening early....Black Friday sales were down because of...you guessed it...Thanksgiving Day sales. So where were all of the protesters? Where was the boycott? It seems that once again, we took the wrong definition of value.