Just 2 days left to Christmas. I don’t really have much to post today other than a little factoid I picked up yesterday at work. It seems that the economy has gotten so bad up here that some local retailers are completely shutting down for the week due to lack of business. People are being really cautious with their money this year and while I can’t say I blame them (I am too), as someone that depends on consumer greed, I’d appreciate it if you all got out there and spent just a little money this year on something.
I heard an interesting story on NPR yesterday. It turns out that the “going green” bandwagon this country has jumped on has started to have some negative impacts in this slow economy. As it turns out, one of this country’s largest exports is recycled paper and cardboard. This is the stuff we dump in the recycle bin to keep out of our landfills. The person on NPR said that several years ago this was big business, we shipped this stuff out of the country, mostly to China where they apparently do not have a steady source for this stuff, they break it down and then turn it into all the boxes for all the commodities that we then turn around and import back into this country. As it turns out, because our economy is in the tank, the demand in China (and other countries) for this stuff has fallen off a cliff. We aren’t buying the big screen TV’s and the toys that are packaged in this recycled cardboard and plastic. So, the value of our exports has fallen significantly, barges of this stuff are being refused at foreign ports (because they don’t need it), all because buying activity has come to a screeching halt. It turns out that it is now less expensive and more profitable to simply dump this cardboard into a landfill. Sad.
So, that being said – TRIM SANTA’S CLAWS and go out and buy something today. I thought the cartoon below was appropriate as we prepare as a country to send Bush packing. I’ll be posting more on the political side of things in the future (lots going on) but I’ll wait to interject my opinions until after the holiday.
