December 26, 2009

The good thing about Christmas is that as slowly as it creeps on us so suddenly it is over. While the civilized world celebrates the Second Day of Christmas, here in the good old US of A it is already forgotten.

Everywhere it is a legal holiday but here because I guess the Constitution forbids the celebration of religious holidays it is a non-holiday day.

Except the retail stores wanted to make it into a special day. They advertised that today would be better than Black Friday because there would be sales of unspeakable proportions.

We went to a few stores today as did our friends. As it turned out the stores, including a certain Macy's, were empty. The sales were the same as they were weeks ago and, stuff that was really off, like 75% off, were such garbage that even the salvation Army would reject it.

Are these businesses convinced that everybody in the world is stupid? That shoppers have no self respect and would buy any crap they put out just because they say it should be bought?

The retailers are so disrespecting the public that they really deserve the problems they are creating for themselves.

Anyway, 2009 Christmas is over. Take a few weeks off and start to get ready for 2010 Christmas. I wouldn't be surprised to see advertisements by the end of January for next Christmas. Since they are starting earlier every year this is not unimaginable.

Next week will be a short week. Thursday is New Year's Eve. The New York Stock Exchange will be closing at 1 p.m. So, we are looking for a really short week as far as the stock market goes. I hope there will be no surprises or negative announcements that would force the market to react badly. I really would like to close the year on an up note.

But then we can only hope!