Most of you have probably received by now this message going around the net calling for 20 January to be observed as "Not One Damn Dime Day." The last one that I got bore the (electronic) signature of the venerable TV journalist Bill Moyers, though I doubt very much that that very kindly and tolerant fellow has much of anything to do with the malediction of legal tender. The idea is that on the day that George Bush is to be inaugurated, all the good people of America would simultaneously demonstrate their disgust and their power by, ummm, not shopping. Presumably this would demonstrate to the centers of corporate power that el pueblo unido jamás será vencido.
Any reasonably competent economist will explain why putting off your shopping until 21 January is not likely to flip any big corporate wigs, and that it would have no effect at all on your fixed costs. This whole business seems designed to play into the popular fantasy that people can bring about major change by not doing anything (Bartleby, anyone?). It smells to me like a hoax. How does it smell to you?
Update: If you like the idea of a massive boycott and find yourself in the Netherlands, I think that winkelen ought to be permitted.
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3 comments:
It reminds me of Buy Nothing Day on November 27, when hippies get together outside Starbucks stores and loudly refuse to buy goods they normally don't buy anyway. NODDD will probably be equally successful, which is to say it won't.
Stultita said...
Have the post-season sales begun yet over there? Here in Amsterdam they have. I think one'd be stoned alive just proposing such an idea during the Holy Sale period... Cheers!
I think the sale period went by already, pretty much. One of the inequalities in America that not a lot of people know about is the advantage that people who celebrate Christmas on 7 January have over the people who celebrate it on 25 December, because they have access to all those cut rate gifts.
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