Morts Musings

It’s strange how a holiday celebrating a man who denounced materialism has been turned into an orgy of shopping, it just feels wrong.

Refreshing to read a review on the Wall Street Journal – Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn’t Buy Presents for the Holidays,” by a Wharton professor named Joel Waldfogel.

He says the deadweight loss to society from all of this frivolous spending — an “orgy of wealth destruction” as he calls it — is about £10 billion. Imagine if that money was given to charity instead?

“Throughout the year, we shop meticulously for ourselves, looking at scores of items before choosing those that warrant spending our own money. The process at Christmas, by contrast, has givers shooting in the dark about what you like… to make matters worse, we do much of this spending with credit, going into hock using money we don’t yet have to buy things that recipients don’t really want.”

Instead of delving into the ideas in depth, the interviewer seems to focus more on trying to portray Mr. Waldfogel as a scrooge when he has excellent reasons for suggesting that wealth destruction is the result of ill-considered holiday spending. Perhaps the trend towards charity gift cards, and eliminating their non-use fees, isn’t such a bad thing after all. Give to charity this Christmas by sourcing and sending genuine/ ethical charity Christmas cards

Christmas has been whored out as a gift giving orgy for decades and now, with the recession, hopefully we can break the habit.

A lot of economists say that not spending / buying gifts on Christmas hurts the economy etc etc, but ultimately where do most of the presents we buy for loved ones come from? Where does the majority of the money flow to? CHINA.

How about, this year, we start to think about stopping this shopping madness. Take a second look at those useless toys you’re planning on buying and use some of that money towards paying off your credit card. The economy will be stronger for it and there will be less toys in the dustbin come next year.

Money is completely wasted in undesired gifts. In gift giving, you received tremendous benefit – spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physicially. This benefit is specifically derived when you give to someone you love or strong friendship and enjoy the experience of their enjoyment of the gift. That is the benefit.

The benefit of giving charity gifts is just as valuable and absolutely should be done. In fact, it would help to reduce the dependence upon government assistance in many ways.