Holiday Economy Examined

What our present economy has to do with 165,300 bathroom visits and 67 million dead large birds.

2008 has come and gone, as has the drawn out celebration of excess, consumerism and gluttony known as the “holiday season.” A time when love and appreciation are exchanged between family and friends, they say, but really a time when money is exchanged between various cogs in the great big machine of Capitalism.

Courtesy of the ever-brilliant GOOD Magazine, this month’s GOOD Sheet neatly sums up exactly how much was exchanged during holiday seasons past and present, putting The Big Spend into perspective.

In case last night’s debauchery has left you too lazy to click and see for yourself, some noteworthy numbers from the holiday season’s economic footprint:

• $19.8 billion spent on computer and video game console and accessories during November and December of 2007. (And with the epic build-up for Grand Theft Auto 4, Resident Evil 5 and Rock Band, we bet the numbers would be much higher for 2008.)
• 67 million turkeys eaten at Thanksgiving and Christmas
• $9.3 billion in jewelery sales during November and December of 2007
• $474.5 billion in retail sales during holiday season 2007, almost $100 billion more than 10 years ago, adjusted for inflation

Sure, after a certain point, numbers become meaningless. We stop seeing the difference between “huge” and “really huge.” (Really, how much do you care if it’s $30 billion or $300 billion or $500 billion? It’s not like you’ll ever truly “experience” either kind of money anyway.) So here are a few handy yardsticks for contemplating the bigness of those numbers:

• You’ll go to the bathroom roughly 165,300 (read “sort of big”) times in your life.
• You’ll breathe around 400 million (read “huge”) breaths in your lifetime.
• The U.S. national debt (read “really huge”) is $10.6 quadrillion (or billiard, if you’re European) — that’s $10.6 billion with three more zeroes — and growing by $3.37 billion per day.

Got the “a-ha” moment yet? We thought so.

Now go, we’ll leave you to your “sensible financial planning” New Year’s resolutions and trying to figure out what to do with all the idiotic holiday presents Capitalism, disguised as Santa, grandma or that Pollyanna-driven colleague, slipped down your chimney this year.

And remember, ain’t no shame in regifting.

via GOOD Magazine

Related posts:

• Artist Spotlight: Chris Jordan What Van Gogh has to do with Big Tobacco and how piles of folded laundry put the prison system in perspective. The best of art is about something bigger than aestheticism, something that reflects on culture and makes a social statement that moves people. The work of artist Chris Jordan...
• Vintage Design: Innovation Lessons from the Past Bleeding-edge art direction, what Obama's agricultural policy has to do with vintage graphic design, and why 2009 is exactly like 1939 – what the visual history of the Chicago Tribune has to teach us about modern graphic design....
• The Last and the Curious Democracy, rashes, the big ambush, Eastern Europeans for free, why the ‘burbs are cool again, how 40 tons can make you really, really uncomfortable, what gingerbread has to do with sustainability, and just dance, dammit. THE INDEPENDENT MASSES Let’s face it, neither big labels nor online music sales are exactly...
• Get Stuff Done Feigned sobriety, unopposable thumbs, mornings done right, obsessive winking, sweet-talk for hire, how we’re always right, why red is better than apple, and whose rack we were ogling while almost getting arrested. ART OF THE HOW We’re inept. Or at least that’s what the recent surge in how-to sites and...
• Documentary Spotlight: Waterlife Canadian interactive genius, or where 100 billion gallons of water went while you were sleeping....

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 1st, 2009 at 7:20 am in culture, good to know, retail, word-of-mouth and was tagged culture, data, shopping.