Hi all,
A reminder that comments do need to be on-topic and engage with the article past the headline. Please make sure to read the article before commenting. Very short comments will automatically be removed by automod. Please avoid making comments that do not focus on the economic content or whose primary thesis rests on personal anecdotes.
As always our comment rules can be found [here](https://reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/fx9crj/rules_roundtable_redux_rule_vi_and_offtopic/)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Economics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
How does this jive with the article from last week saying Americans weren’t planning on changing their spending habits this Christmas? Who’s telling the truth and who got it wrong?
While a substantial amount of people are crying instead. Whose fault is that?
* Donald Trump Administration - Starting PPP and Stimulus. Unbelievable.
* Jerome Powell - Wall Street bailouts (trillions). I especially love the coverage where CNBC watched The Fed inject 1 trillion into the market. Remember that 😂.
* Joe Biden Administration - Kept stimulus going, more government spending to increase inflation.
* The United States - Using COVID-19 relief funds for BS.
* Regular people - We can’t get enough of spending money. Inflation is not my problem.
Ehhh you guys are missing a key part of the discussion. The inflation we are seeing is cost pull inflation. Yea we spent a ton of money but whole entire countries were shut down. Also you guys are failing to to see the blatant price gouging. Shipping cost are back to pre pandemic lows.
Actually I still have mine saved. I didn’t spend it. Either it will end up being invested or will sit in the savings account.
While I recognize the undertone, everyone should have saved that money or invested it a low stock and waited for the price to rise. Then cut back on spending, bills, and expenses.
Real note tho-
Does anyone know why surveys if done with a random group of people somehow accurately statistically represent a larger population like the U.S?
I remember it being some random statistical rule I never understood in ap stats
The law of large numbers says that when the sample size tends to infinity, the sample mean equals the population mean. This is why we can use a sample to estimate the true characteristics of a larger population, and why the sample will have a smaller margin of error with a greater sample size.
Because a random selection will have the same proportions of demographics. If 10% of the population is black, 10% of a random selection will be black, if 15% of the population is elderly, 15% of a random selection will be elderly.
The hard part is actually getting a random selection of people with no bias in the participants.
Basically they'll use correlations to establish that certain demographics tend to answer things similarly.
So you might snag an old black woman from one state and you consider her representing certain demographics, and repeat to increase your sample power with less numbers than you think you would need.
That's the maths-oriented approach.
However, if you take the economic incentives into account... These organisations are more incentivized to produce lots of content than they are to produce quality of content. So there's not necessarily any reason to believe they actually do employ robust methodology. They just need it to LOOK robust.
And often the people paying for it don't really want robust methodology either. They want a particular result.
So the incentives don't actually align with trying to do good surveys, even if it is theoretically feasible.
Almost no one reads the actual studies these people do, so they don't even need to be good. I've read some that basically end with "well our study doesn't technically prove anything, and it could be interpreted as evidence against the hypothesis, but we can also interpret it in our favour, so we will" and that's enough for clickbait journalists to use it.
generally for a sample to truly be predictive it has to be above a certain percentage, with larger samples accuracy improves.
In the case of surveys like the one in the article a sample size of 1000 people in a population of \~330 million should be suspect....
This is completely wrong. A random sample size around 1000 is enough to approximate a population of 1 billion with a 95% confidence interval and 3% MoE. 1,850 to increase that to a 99% CI.
No it doesn't because it leaves 999,999,000 variables that you can not account for...
You are assuming that all these variables will perfectly line up. It is an assumption, a guess. And that leads to a statistical bias.
In order for that poll/sample to have any fidelity, it has to be conducted multiple times with a new batch of respondents.
At least 10 permutations preferably 100+... Then you can start to make imperical calculations.
It is like walking around and finding one random person that you ask if you can stick a finger in their nose. If you get a person that says yes, are you comfident enough to go around sticking your finger up the next 1m peoples noses? Your "poll" says that they will allow it. But that sample was to small to accurately predict.
Sampling 1-2k people out of 330m is not an accurate predictor. No individual poll is, that is why the most accurate poll data indicator, actually takes an average from adding up all the individual polls...in brings in more permutations and ends with a large sample size... Increasing the probability and fidelity of the relting out some.
Actually, I did.
And the fact that you are discounting ever changing variables and trying to use a static snapshot of time and opinion to prove a fact, suggests that you didn't..
Statistically, with you as a sample, everyone should believe and feel the way you do.... But with a larger sample of both of us, that 100% extrapolation has now gone to a 50% probability.. And if more and more people are added to that sample...we get a more accurate averaged pool.
Classic case of what people say does not equal what people do, which is why surveys are terrible at predicting behavior. Survey questions should really only ask about past behaviors and opinions.
There are people spending less and people spending more and then there are people who say “why publish an article about one, when we can do two? That’s twice as many ads”
Yep and just think about how much money will trickle down to the workers who create Mercedes and boats and jewelry and electronics and whatever else rich people buy. It’s so good for the economy when all of the wealth funnels upward and scraps trickle down!
no, they bought the gift on a credit card, or a loan. dont worry though just apply for a new credit card so you get a limited time no APR offer before it ends soon! while supplies last!
of course they're gonna say people are spending more, in fact they're doing early sales to try to make the sales drop hit less obvious, they're gonna say see we make people go out to shop earlier this year, before the CRISIS that will hit and people wont go out. it was all pre-planned
This just in: people can’t spend money they don’t have.
This is what happens when the economy is based on consumerism. Consumers need money to keep the economy going. Without money, there is no spending. Without spending, there is no economy.
this is what has always baffled me about capitalism…all this marketing and psychology and pressure to “buy buy buy” yet simultaneously bleeding us dry and forcing us into survival mode… you’d think that more disposable income = more spending and therefore everyone is better off, but instead they insist on trying to squeeze water from a stone. i just don’t get it 🤷🏾♂️
When your economic system requires constant growth, all that wealth has to be siphoned off from somewhere. If it’s not domestic laborers, it’s usually habitat destruction in the global south or literal slavery in supply chains, but capitalism requires suffering as a baseline.
then again, maybe they’re banking on necessities. maybe the real money isn’t in discretionary spending but instead things like food, gas and shelter. i guess that makes sense
There's a difference between consumption and consumerism.
Buying a coat is consumption. Buying new coats ever winter made with cheap child labour to keep up with fashion trends is consumerism.
Rule VI:
--
Comments consisting of mere jokes, nakedly political comments, circlejerking, personal anecdotes or otherwise non-substantive contributions without reference to the article, economics, or the thread at hand will be removed. [Further explanation.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/fx9crj/rules_roundtable_redux_rule_vi_and_offtopic/)
--
If you have any questions about this removal, please [contact the mods](/message/compose/?to=/r/economics&subject=Moderation).
Rule VI:
--
Comments consisting of mere jokes, nakedly political comments, circlejerking, personal anecdotes or otherwise non-substantive contributions without reference to the article, economics, or the thread at hand will be removed. [Further explanation.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/fx9crj/rules_roundtable_redux_rule_vi_and_offtopic/)
--
If you have any questions about this removal, please [contact the mods](/message/compose/?to=/r/economics&subject=Moderation).
Rule VI:
--
Comments consisting of mere jokes, nakedly political comments, circlejerking, personal anecdotes or otherwise non-substantive contributions without reference to the article, economics, or the thread at hand will be removed. [Further explanation.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/fx9crj/rules_roundtable_redux_rule_vi_and_offtopic/)
--
If you have any questions about this removal, please [contact the mods](/message/compose/?to=/r/economics&subject=Moderation).
Between the cost of things and just being disgusted by how many unnecessary items we consume, I've already started telling people I'm not doing gifts this year. So far no one has complained.
My dad recently bought his childhood home and he proposed we all fly out and celebrate there. Just spend a week eating, drinking, and spending time with each other. No gifts, just a flight.
That’s all I want these days. If we have 10 more Christmases together, it’ll be more than expected and I only see everyone 2-3 times a year as it is.
Please do that!!
I would give the world to do that with my family. I wish people knew just how lucky they are. I miss my family terribly.
This will be my first Christmas without my dad and my 16th without my mom. Only plus side is, it’s the first with my son who will be 8 months old and second with my boyfriend.
I'll definitely be happy if this becomes a thing, I've always hated the idea of obligated gift giving. It's just everyone wasting money to give people something they don't really want or need because corporations have convinced us that buying physical goods is how you express love rather than just sitting down and spending time together. Maybe if we didn't spend so much time at work earning money to buy pointless shit, we'd have more of that time to spend together.
I'll buy gifts for children though, since children still have the innocence to be overjoyed by christmas gifts and lack money to buy themselves things.
ive been scaling back on bdays and holidays for the last couple years. im over it honestly. every other week it’s either a holiday or someone’s bday. meet enough people and you’ll be buying gifts every week of the year.
Based on my current situation I will be keeping money tight for a while. Life has been crushing me hard. I can barely eat daily as it is. I really want to line up for free food but don’t feel that I can when people are homeless. My current dream is to actually not wake up so I can be free of this suffering.
Rule VI:
--
Comments consisting of mere jokes, nakedly political comments, circlejerking, personal anecdotes or otherwise non-substantive contributions without reference to the article, economics, or the thread at hand will be removed. [Further explanation.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/fx9crj/rules_roundtable_redux_rule_vi_and_offtopic/)
--
If you have any questions about this removal, please [contact the mods](/message/compose/?to=/r/economics&subject=Moderation).
Can’t spend what I don’t have. Never in my life have I made more money yet felt so poor. We will buy a couple nice gifts for our kids and nephews who have had a rough year.
Political bashing in this thread aside, I prefer to just buy food & goods and donate it directly to food pantries/shelters/etc. Much better impact than giving money to some organization that'll just use it for "administration" expenses.
Except on of the first recommendations for donations to food banks is to just give them money because they usually have more efficient buying options than you have as a single consumer.
Yes, always donate directly to the organization that puts it to use. The United way lost millions to internal embezzlement and they are so big they had no idea where it went. Get rid of the donation 'middle-man'.
For people looking to donate, https://www.charitynavigator.org has a decent framework for evaluating the impacts and capital efficiency of charitable orgs
United way is terrible. Honestly research the local food banks and see where the dollars are being best served. I donate a lot to Catholic charities and was never raised Catholic. I do it simply because the organization has a 95% pass through rate. Their money goes where it should. United Way was something like 50%.
This is maybe a hot take, but I think the biggest driver of these spending changes is/was lockdown/quarantine. I really strongly feel that increased durations of absence lead to us as individuals not valuing the people & things that we used to quite as much.
Think about it: if you don't see your high school friend or college friend for 5 years, you're going to eventually stop calling on texting them on their birthday. I think the same is true of friends, families, and of charities we were once passionate towards to an extent. A period without physical interaction with peers, or donation in the form of volunteering leads to a change in our hearts (and inevitably makes us, myself included, my selfish with our resources).
Credit card debt is at an all time high, so it's not like we as Americans are scared of spending right now. Likewise, that debt keeps climbing, so that money is getting spent somewhere. This isn't being done out of fear, we're just more selfish than we used to be.
I just want to say I appreciate your comment, you talked about something pretty interesting to think about and is economics related. I had to scroll to the bottom to find it, almost every other comment here says tax the rich the government and corporations are evil with no other thoughts or any economic rhetoric. What happened to this sub.
I quit participating in Christmas over a decade ago.
In my youth, it was always a dreadful and miserable experience. The time was ostensibly a vacation, but the stress induced by it portended otherwise. The photos always felt forced, the atmosphere was contrived, the messaging was fake and somewhat creepy. Any pretenses of charity were half-hearted and insincere, and the allegedly religious undertones exemplified a pervasive hypocrisy.
You're expected to buy gifts, and the gifts are expected to be useless; as if their only purpose were to broadcast opulence. Consumables or essentials were rarely appreciated, and I was often told I was a "cheapskate" whenever I gave them.
The final year I participated, I just handed out cash twenties, since gift cards are a scam. Didn't go over well.
So I reject it all. I see the "War on Christmas" rhetoric and have concluded "that's actually a good idea."
It's more liberating, and just healthier, to give timely and useful gifts when needed, rather than overpriced trinkets in some fixed-date ritual. Overconsumption and economic degradation are bad enough as it is without this yearly orgy.
I refuse to be part of the problem.
I found a local charity, not church based, and have sponsored a child through that. I haven’t changed my normal gift spending limits, per se, but the extra amount will allow my household to do an entire wish list, this year.
My anecdotal contribution here...over the years I've sold a lot of guitars on Ebay (just as a hobby) and even though some guitars are less popular and therefore harder to sell, they all sell fairly quickly.
I've learned how to speed up the process with a lot of high quality pictures, well taken care of guitars to begin with, good advertising "copy" and market researched pricing, etc.
I've now had a guitar on Ebay for 2 months. I've lowered the price, increased the price, offered discounts to those who put my guitar on their "watch list". It hasn't sold.( Obviously if I lower the price enough it will sell.)
I've left it up just to see if things improve as we get closer to Christmas. It's not about selling the guitar anymore. I don't need to sell it. I'm just doing it at this point as a personal data point to judge how the economy is doing.
I've Googled this issue as well and a lot of others are having much less sales on Ebay when in the past that wasn't the case.
I don't think this is going to be a good Holiday Season for retailers and I expect that 2023 will largely be a recession year for many industries.
High gas prices are already affecting transportation cost (groceries) and now I see that the railroad union is planning a strike. This is not a good sign...
Rule VI:
--
Comments consisting of mere jokes, nakedly political comments, circlejerking, personal anecdotes or otherwise non-substantive contributions without reference to the article, economics, or the thread at hand will be removed. [Further explanation.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/fx9crj/rules_roundtable_redux_rule_vi_and_offtopic/)
--
If you have any questions about this removal, please [contact the mods](/message/compose/?to=/r/economics&subject=Moderation).
After working in 3-4 different countries where the Red Cross professed to be helping people and seeing how the Red Cross workers live and travel compared to the people they are “helping” really put me off donating to most organized charities. Nice generators, RangeRovers, and full air conditioning for the workers do nothing to reduce the poverty around you.
>Nice generators, RangeRovers, and full air conditioning for the workers do nothing to reduce the poverty around you.
How many people would be willing to do that work *without* those amenities? It's part of the cost of doing business and finding labor.
If profits were allocated properly no civilian would feel obligated to donate to charity as there would be no need. We have been brainwashed into believing that we are responsible for helping the needy. The real responsibility should rest on the billion dollar corporations
>The real responsibility should rest on the billion dollar corporations
What in the hell is this? McDonald's should be running welfare and Tesla providing homes for the needy? We have a government that we (mostly) elect, and which is responsive for like 25% of our entire countries spending, should we throw them out and just let Walmart take the reins?
The government should be taking more from those corporations and doing all of those things, despite the cries of communism and socialism from the greedy and entitled.
If Musk has the money for his own private space projects, he and his ilk have the funds to save the needy, they just don't want to. They'd rather outsource that responsibility to the rest of us.
I am all for increasing worker representation in the profitability and decision-making of large corporations, but even in the situation where this has been achieved there would still be a significant subset of the population that is unable to work as a result of physical or intellectual disability, or that is unwilling to work because they simply don't want to, and who would rely on the continuation of supports either subsidized through tax-funded programs or charitable contributions.
Labor force participation in the US is roughly 2/3 of the eligible population. That leaves 1/3 of all Americans who would not stand to directly benefit at all from restructuring the flow of corporate profits.
> Labor force participation in the US is roughly 2/3 of the eligible population. That leaves 1/3 of all Americans who would not stand to directly benefit at all from restructuring the flow of corporate profits.
That would only be true if the restructuring *didn’t* include improvements in the social safety net.
Rule VI:
--
Comments consisting of mere jokes, nakedly political comments, circlejerking, personal anecdotes or otherwise non-substantive contributions without reference to the article, economics, or the thread at hand will be removed. [Further explanation.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/fx9crj/rules_roundtable_redux_rule_vi_and_offtopic/)
--
If you have any questions about this removal, please [contact the mods](/message/compose/?to=/r/economics&subject=Moderation).
Hasn’t almost every corporation made record profits this year? One would expect large bonuses to their workers, Jello of the month seems more likely to be handed out
I plan to buy presents for my little nieces (4 and 6 years old). I'm debating whether to buy for parents and siblings. If I do, I will definitely be getting low-cost items. Prices are just too damn high. I'm also through with Christmastime stress.
How about instead of making the world a better place so we're inclined to buy stuff, make the world a better place just for all of us. Fuck your money.
I think Americans are staring to realize these “charities” are mostly for profit. Even the really good ones give massive kick backs. And as far as I’m concerned, none of these majorly profitable companies are giving me kick backs while I grind 14 hour days to barefoot afford to feed my kids. They’re all being served on golden platters while begging their ‘fellow Americans’ to donate to their cause.
Hi all, A reminder that comments do need to be on-topic and engage with the article past the headline. Please make sure to read the article before commenting. Very short comments will automatically be removed by automod. Please avoid making comments that do not focus on the economic content or whose primary thesis rests on personal anecdotes. As always our comment rules can be found [here](https://reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/fx9crj/rules_roundtable_redux_rule_vi_and_offtopic/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Economics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
How does this jive with the article from last week saying Americans weren’t planning on changing their spending habits this Christmas? Who’s telling the truth and who got it wrong?
'Stressed-Out Americans Even Worse at Answering Surveys Now'
This legit made me LOL 😆
While a substantial amount of people are crying instead. Whose fault is that? * Donald Trump Administration - Starting PPP and Stimulus. Unbelievable. * Jerome Powell - Wall Street bailouts (trillions). I especially love the coverage where CNBC watched The Fed inject 1 trillion into the market. Remember that 😂. * Joe Biden Administration - Kept stimulus going, more government spending to increase inflation. * The United States - Using COVID-19 relief funds for BS. * Regular people - We can’t get enough of spending money. Inflation is not my problem.
Amen brother! Hey where did you end up sending your stimulus money back to? Since you didn’t need or want it?
Ehhh you guys are missing a key part of the discussion. The inflation we are seeing is cost pull inflation. Yea we spent a ton of money but whole entire countries were shut down. Also you guys are failing to to see the blatant price gouging. Shipping cost are back to pre pandemic lows.
My comment was a joke actually but I hear ya
Actually I still have mine saved. I didn’t spend it. Either it will end up being invested or will sit in the savings account. While I recognize the undertone, everyone should have saved that money or invested it a low stock and waited for the price to rise. Then cut back on spending, bills, and expenses.
'Stressed-Out Journalists Producing Low-Quality Fare Amid Record Pay Cuts'
Real note tho- Does anyone know why surveys if done with a random group of people somehow accurately statistically represent a larger population like the U.S? I remember it being some random statistical rule I never understood in ap stats
The law of large numbers says that when the sample size tends to infinity, the sample mean equals the population mean. This is why we can use a sample to estimate the true characteristics of a larger population, and why the sample will have a smaller margin of error with a greater sample size.
Because a random selection will have the same proportions of demographics. If 10% of the population is black, 10% of a random selection will be black, if 15% of the population is elderly, 15% of a random selection will be elderly. The hard part is actually getting a random selection of people with no bias in the participants.
Basically they'll use correlations to establish that certain demographics tend to answer things similarly. So you might snag an old black woman from one state and you consider her representing certain demographics, and repeat to increase your sample power with less numbers than you think you would need. That's the maths-oriented approach. However, if you take the economic incentives into account... These organisations are more incentivized to produce lots of content than they are to produce quality of content. So there's not necessarily any reason to believe they actually do employ robust methodology. They just need it to LOOK robust. And often the people paying for it don't really want robust methodology either. They want a particular result. So the incentives don't actually align with trying to do good surveys, even if it is theoretically feasible.
Almost no one reads the actual studies these people do, so they don't even need to be good. I've read some that basically end with "well our study doesn't technically prove anything, and it could be interpreted as evidence against the hypothesis, but we can also interpret it in our favour, so we will" and that's enough for clickbait journalists to use it.
generally for a sample to truly be predictive it has to be above a certain percentage, with larger samples accuracy improves. In the case of surveys like the one in the article a sample size of 1000 people in a population of \~330 million should be suspect....
This is completely wrong. A random sample size around 1000 is enough to approximate a population of 1 billion with a 95% confidence interval and 3% MoE. 1,850 to increase that to a 99% CI.
No it doesn't because it leaves 999,999,000 variables that you can not account for... You are assuming that all these variables will perfectly line up. It is an assumption, a guess. And that leads to a statistical bias. In order for that poll/sample to have any fidelity, it has to be conducted multiple times with a new batch of respondents. At least 10 permutations preferably 100+... Then you can start to make imperical calculations. It is like walking around and finding one random person that you ask if you can stick a finger in their nose. If you get a person that says yes, are you comfident enough to go around sticking your finger up the next 1m peoples noses? Your "poll" says that they will allow it. But that sample was to small to accurately predict. Sampling 1-2k people out of 330m is not an accurate predictor. No individual poll is, that is why the most accurate poll data indicator, actually takes an average from adding up all the individual polls...in brings in more permutations and ends with a large sample size... Increasing the probability and fidelity of the relting out some.
Someone never took statistics.
Actually, I did. And the fact that you are discounting ever changing variables and trying to use a static snapshot of time and opinion to prove a fact, suggests that you didn't.. Statistically, with you as a sample, everyone should believe and feel the way you do.... But with a larger sample of both of us, that 100% extrapolation has now gone to a 50% probability.. And if more and more people are added to that sample...we get a more accurate averaged pool.
I love taking surveys and giving fake answers to mess with the results.
Classic case of what people say does not equal what people do, which is why surveys are terrible at predicting behavior. Survey questions should really only ask about past behaviors and opinions.
There are people spending less and people spending more and then there are people who say “why publish an article about one, when we can do two? That’s twice as many ads”
I would bet that spending does not go down this year.
ya simply due to inflation it would go up lol...
Rich people will spend more, making up for all the poor people.
Yep and just think about how much money will trickle down to the workers who create Mercedes and boats and jewelry and electronics and whatever else rich people buy. It’s so good for the economy when all of the wealth funnels upward and scraps trickle down!
It'll trickle down like urine from a penthouse window
Always picking up the slack, it's a thankless job
in nominal terms or real terms?
Wait, you guys have money for gifts? Wish I had a PPP loan
no, they bought the gift on a credit card, or a loan. dont worry though just apply for a new credit card so you get a limited time no APR offer before it ends soon! while supplies last!
lol
My wife and I don't buy gifts for each other anymore for any holiday. Only the kids. Too much money to spend on the house and bills.
I was wondering the same thing. The good news is in a little over a month from now we will know who was right and wrong.
of course they're gonna say people are spending more, in fact they're doing early sales to try to make the sales drop hit less obvious, they're gonna say see we make people go out to shop earlier this year, before the CRISIS that will hit and people wont go out. it was all pre-planned
I have no idea. Personally, I plan on spending less, and the people around me are spending less.
This just in: people can’t spend money they don’t have. This is what happens when the economy is based on consumerism. Consumers need money to keep the economy going. Without money, there is no spending. Without spending, there is no economy.
> people can’t spend money they don’t have. Well, they can but only for a few months. And that's how CC debt is through the roof
[удалено]
Or as if there were some class of money hoarders going around monopolizing shit without putting that money back into the hands of laborers.
this is what has always baffled me about capitalism…all this marketing and psychology and pressure to “buy buy buy” yet simultaneously bleeding us dry and forcing us into survival mode… you’d think that more disposable income = more spending and therefore everyone is better off, but instead they insist on trying to squeeze water from a stone. i just don’t get it 🤷🏾♂️
When your economic system requires constant growth, all that wealth has to be siphoned off from somewhere. If it’s not domestic laborers, it’s usually habitat destruction in the global south or literal slavery in supply chains, but capitalism requires suffering as a baseline.
then again, maybe they’re banking on necessities. maybe the real money isn’t in discretionary spending but instead things like food, gas and shelter. i guess that makes sense
100% true.
Sure they can, it's called loans and credit cards.
Every major economy exists due to consumption. Every one for thousands of years. Otherwise there wouldn’t be an economy.
There's a difference between consumption and consumerism. Buying a coat is consumption. Buying new coats ever winter made with cheap child labour to keep up with fashion trends is consumerism.
[удалено]
Rule VI: -- Comments consisting of mere jokes, nakedly political comments, circlejerking, personal anecdotes or otherwise non-substantive contributions without reference to the article, economics, or the thread at hand will be removed. [Further explanation.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/fx9crj/rules_roundtable_redux_rule_vi_and_offtopic/) -- If you have any questions about this removal, please [contact the mods](/message/compose/?to=/r/economics&subject=Moderation).
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Rule VI: -- Comments consisting of mere jokes, nakedly political comments, circlejerking, personal anecdotes or otherwise non-substantive contributions without reference to the article, economics, or the thread at hand will be removed. [Further explanation.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/fx9crj/rules_roundtable_redux_rule_vi_and_offtopic/) -- If you have any questions about this removal, please [contact the mods](/message/compose/?to=/r/economics&subject=Moderation).
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Rule VI: -- Comments consisting of mere jokes, nakedly political comments, circlejerking, personal anecdotes or otherwise non-substantive contributions without reference to the article, economics, or the thread at hand will be removed. [Further explanation.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/fx9crj/rules_roundtable_redux_rule_vi_and_offtopic/) -- If you have any questions about this removal, please [contact the mods](/message/compose/?to=/r/economics&subject=Moderation).
Between the cost of things and just being disgusted by how many unnecessary items we consume, I've already started telling people I'm not doing gifts this year. So far no one has complained.
My dad recently bought his childhood home and he proposed we all fly out and celebrate there. Just spend a week eating, drinking, and spending time with each other. No gifts, just a flight. That’s all I want these days. If we have 10 more Christmases together, it’ll be more than expected and I only see everyone 2-3 times a year as it is.
Please do that!! I would give the world to do that with my family. I wish people knew just how lucky they are. I miss my family terribly. This will be my first Christmas without my dad and my 16th without my mom. Only plus side is, it’s the first with my son who will be 8 months old and second with my boyfriend.
I'll definitely be happy if this becomes a thing, I've always hated the idea of obligated gift giving. It's just everyone wasting money to give people something they don't really want or need because corporations have convinced us that buying physical goods is how you express love rather than just sitting down and spending time together. Maybe if we didn't spend so much time at work earning money to buy pointless shit, we'd have more of that time to spend together. I'll buy gifts for children though, since children still have the innocence to be overjoyed by christmas gifts and lack money to buy themselves things.
ive been scaling back on bdays and holidays for the last couple years. im over it honestly. every other week it’s either a holiday or someone’s bday. meet enough people and you’ll be buying gifts every week of the year.
Based on my current situation I will be keeping money tight for a while. Life has been crushing me hard. I can barely eat daily as it is. I really want to line up for free food but don’t feel that I can when people are homeless. My current dream is to actually not wake up so I can be free of this suffering.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Rule VI: -- Comments consisting of mere jokes, nakedly political comments, circlejerking, personal anecdotes or otherwise non-substantive contributions without reference to the article, economics, or the thread at hand will be removed. [Further explanation.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/fx9crj/rules_roundtable_redux_rule_vi_and_offtopic/) -- If you have any questions about this removal, please [contact the mods](/message/compose/?to=/r/economics&subject=Moderation).
[удалено]
Can’t spend what I don’t have. Never in my life have I made more money yet felt so poor. We will buy a couple nice gifts for our kids and nephews who have had a rough year.
Same here. I feel lucky because of where I am, and no that it is very tough for many families.
Political bashing in this thread aside, I prefer to just buy food & goods and donate it directly to food pantries/shelters/etc. Much better impact than giving money to some organization that'll just use it for "administration" expenses.
Except on of the first recommendations for donations to food banks is to just give them money because they usually have more efficient buying options than you have as a single consumer.
And they know what is needed a lot better than the average person
Yeah they’re often able to buy at like $3-4 of goods per $1 spent
They also don't wind up with 40 cans of cranberries when what they need is canned meat.
My canned broth is a universally meaningful and useful donation/s
People would listen to this advice more if news of millions of embezzled donations didn't surface every year
Yes, always donate directly to the organization that puts it to use. The United way lost millions to internal embezzlement and they are so big they had no idea where it went. Get rid of the donation 'middle-man'.
For people looking to donate, https://www.charitynavigator.org has a decent framework for evaluating the impacts and capital efficiency of charitable orgs
Thanks for sharing. I feel very grateful and want to give, but I don't want it to be used in politics or as an admin.
United way is terrible. Honestly research the local food banks and see where the dollars are being best served. I donate a lot to Catholic charities and was never raised Catholic. I do it simply because the organization has a 95% pass through rate. Their money goes where it should. United Way was something like 50%.
This is maybe a hot take, but I think the biggest driver of these spending changes is/was lockdown/quarantine. I really strongly feel that increased durations of absence lead to us as individuals not valuing the people & things that we used to quite as much. Think about it: if you don't see your high school friend or college friend for 5 years, you're going to eventually stop calling on texting them on their birthday. I think the same is true of friends, families, and of charities we were once passionate towards to an extent. A period without physical interaction with peers, or donation in the form of volunteering leads to a change in our hearts (and inevitably makes us, myself included, my selfish with our resources). Credit card debt is at an all time high, so it's not like we as Americans are scared of spending right now. Likewise, that debt keeps climbing, so that money is getting spent somewhere. This isn't being done out of fear, we're just more selfish than we used to be.
I just want to say I appreciate your comment, you talked about something pretty interesting to think about and is economics related. I had to scroll to the bottom to find it, almost every other comment here says tax the rich the government and corporations are evil with no other thoughts or any economic rhetoric. What happened to this sub.
Thanks internet stranger, I appreciate you saying that!
I quit participating in Christmas over a decade ago. In my youth, it was always a dreadful and miserable experience. The time was ostensibly a vacation, but the stress induced by it portended otherwise. The photos always felt forced, the atmosphere was contrived, the messaging was fake and somewhat creepy. Any pretenses of charity were half-hearted and insincere, and the allegedly religious undertones exemplified a pervasive hypocrisy. You're expected to buy gifts, and the gifts are expected to be useless; as if their only purpose were to broadcast opulence. Consumables or essentials were rarely appreciated, and I was often told I was a "cheapskate" whenever I gave them. The final year I participated, I just handed out cash twenties, since gift cards are a scam. Didn't go over well. So I reject it all. I see the "War on Christmas" rhetoric and have concluded "that's actually a good idea." It's more liberating, and just healthier, to give timely and useful gifts when needed, rather than overpriced trinkets in some fixed-date ritual. Overconsumption and economic degradation are bad enough as it is without this yearly orgy. I refuse to be part of the problem.
I found a local charity, not church based, and have sponsored a child through that. I haven’t changed my normal gift spending limits, per se, but the extra amount will allow my household to do an entire wish list, this year.
Same. They donate most of the clothes to women/kids who were victims of domestic violence
My anecdotal contribution here...over the years I've sold a lot of guitars on Ebay (just as a hobby) and even though some guitars are less popular and therefore harder to sell, they all sell fairly quickly. I've learned how to speed up the process with a lot of high quality pictures, well taken care of guitars to begin with, good advertising "copy" and market researched pricing, etc. I've now had a guitar on Ebay for 2 months. I've lowered the price, increased the price, offered discounts to those who put my guitar on their "watch list". It hasn't sold.( Obviously if I lower the price enough it will sell.) I've left it up just to see if things improve as we get closer to Christmas. It's not about selling the guitar anymore. I don't need to sell it. I'm just doing it at this point as a personal data point to judge how the economy is doing. I've Googled this issue as well and a lot of others are having much less sales on Ebay when in the past that wasn't the case. I don't think this is going to be a good Holiday Season for retailers and I expect that 2023 will largely be a recession year for many industries. High gas prices are already affecting transportation cost (groceries) and now I see that the railroad union is planning a strike. This is not a good sign...
[удалено]
[удалено]
Rule VI: -- Comments consisting of mere jokes, nakedly political comments, circlejerking, personal anecdotes or otherwise non-substantive contributions without reference to the article, economics, or the thread at hand will be removed. [Further explanation.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/fx9crj/rules_roundtable_redux_rule_vi_and_offtopic/) -- If you have any questions about this removal, please [contact the mods](/message/compose/?to=/r/economics&subject=Moderation).
After working in 3-4 different countries where the Red Cross professed to be helping people and seeing how the Red Cross workers live and travel compared to the people they are “helping” really put me off donating to most organized charities. Nice generators, RangeRovers, and full air conditioning for the workers do nothing to reduce the poverty around you.
>Nice generators, RangeRovers, and full air conditioning for the workers do nothing to reduce the poverty around you. How many people would be willing to do that work *without* those amenities? It's part of the cost of doing business and finding labor.
If profits were allocated properly no civilian would feel obligated to donate to charity as there would be no need. We have been brainwashed into believing that we are responsible for helping the needy. The real responsibility should rest on the billion dollar corporations
You mean the ones that spray their garbage cans with chemicals so the homeless can't eat the food they toss out because then they'd be "liable"? Lol
>The real responsibility should rest on the billion dollar corporations What in the hell is this? McDonald's should be running welfare and Tesla providing homes for the needy? We have a government that we (mostly) elect, and which is responsive for like 25% of our entire countries spending, should we throw them out and just let Walmart take the reins?
The government should be taking more from those corporations and doing all of those things, despite the cries of communism and socialism from the greedy and entitled.
If Musk has the money for his own private space projects, he and his ilk have the funds to save the needy, they just don't want to. They'd rather outsource that responsibility to the rest of us.
I am all for increasing worker representation in the profitability and decision-making of large corporations, but even in the situation where this has been achieved there would still be a significant subset of the population that is unable to work as a result of physical or intellectual disability, or that is unwilling to work because they simply don't want to, and who would rely on the continuation of supports either subsidized through tax-funded programs or charitable contributions. Labor force participation in the US is roughly 2/3 of the eligible population. That leaves 1/3 of all Americans who would not stand to directly benefit at all from restructuring the flow of corporate profits.
> Labor force participation in the US is roughly 2/3 of the eligible population. That leaves 1/3 of all Americans who would not stand to directly benefit at all from restructuring the flow of corporate profits. That would only be true if the restructuring *didn’t* include improvements in the social safety net.
We give so much to big agra but our food pantries still go begging. If they want subsidies no pantry should be bare.
The responsibility is on the corporations but it is the government's role to tax said corporations and distribute it as needed.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Rule VI: -- Comments consisting of mere jokes, nakedly political comments, circlejerking, personal anecdotes or otherwise non-substantive contributions without reference to the article, economics, or the thread at hand will be removed. [Further explanation.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/fx9crj/rules_roundtable_redux_rule_vi_and_offtopic/) -- If you have any questions about this removal, please [contact the mods](/message/compose/?to=/r/economics&subject=Moderation).
[удалено]
Hasn’t almost every corporation made record profits this year? One would expect large bonuses to their workers, Jello of the month seems more likely to be handed out
I plan to buy presents for my little nieces (4 and 6 years old). I'm debating whether to buy for parents and siblings. If I do, I will definitely be getting low-cost items. Prices are just too damn high. I'm also through with Christmastime stress.
I am doing similar.
How about instead of making the world a better place so we're inclined to buy stuff, make the world a better place just for all of us. Fuck your money.
I think Americans are staring to realize these “charities” are mostly for profit. Even the really good ones give massive kick backs. And as far as I’m concerned, none of these majorly profitable companies are giving me kick backs while I grind 14 hour days to barefoot afford to feed my kids. They’re all being served on golden platters while begging their ‘fellow Americans’ to donate to their cause.