Christmas time is supposed to be about cheer, joy, gratitude and peace. Or at least, that’s how it used to be. But in today’s America, we’re seeing a disturbing trend of fights, violence and greed overtaking this national holiday as the rotten economics of the last 20 years have forced people to literally compete and in some cases stampede for once-a-year deals on specific merchandise.
Watch this clip, and you can see one of a series of Black Friday fights in an American Wal-Mart. Many people will often show up early to big box stores like Wal-Mart in anticipation of “loss-leader” bargains that are on offer.
These loss-leader items are typically goods that a store sells at a loss in order to lure in customers, who they hope will then purchase many other items that the store has for sale.
Often, these items are highly in-demand “Christmas special” models of televisions, video games and sporting goods that the stores have extremely limited quantities of. So, for a crowd of hundreds or thousands of people, a Wal-Mart such as this one might only have 10 pieces of a particular model of merchandise in stock at rare one-time prices.
Add in the fact that many of these shoppers hold multiple jobs and have extremely limited amounts of time to shop, and you have a recipe for fighting, rudeness, short tempers and name-calling at a time when people are supposed to be behaving with selflessness, decency and graciousness toward their common man. Is this what Christmas has come to?
