Merry Christmas, China
By Shawn Dell Joyce
It seems as if after Thanksgiving, the major news in our country is shopping and whether retail sales will top last year’s sales. And spend we will! We spend an average of $856 per person on the holidays, according to the American Research Group.
Unfortunately, most of our hard-earned dollars will go straight to China because more than 70 percent of the goods on store shelves are from there. If we multiply that by the current U.S. population, that’s about $180 billion leaving home for the holidays.
A recent economic study conducted in Austin, Texas, found that if each household in Travis County (population 921,006) simply redirected $100 of planned holiday spending from chain stores (carrying cheap imports) to the stores of local merchants, the local economic impact would reach approximately $10 million. Imagine how $10 million would boost your community’s economy.
On average, we spend between 20 and 40 hours shopping for holiday gifts and waiting in long lines. You easily could make most of your holiday gifts in that time and have the added bonus of time shared as a family. If you are buying gifts or giving money, you are cheating your loved ones. Instead, give gifts of time. Offer to change your elderly relatives’ light bulbs to compact fluorescents, or give them coupons good for a free day’s worth of caulking and winterizing. Those are things they could really use, and time spent together will benefit all of you.
Holidays should be about time well spent, not money. In the land where we have plenty of food, noise and gizmos, those are the things we cherish.
Here are a few ideas for adding more joy to your household and community this holiday season:
— Spend less time shopping, and make gingerbread men with your children one afternoon. Put the gingerbread men on decorative plates, and drop in on each neighbor to spread cheer.
— Pump money into the local economy by making donations to the food bank. That money will help families in your neighborhood more surely than money spent at a national chain store.
— Ask young children to pick out toys to buy and donate them to one of the Toys for Tots programs.
— Have a family meeting to decide on a spending limit, and figure out what imaginative gifts you can make together.
— This time of year is craft fair season and most churches and community groups offer at least one. Craft fairs are great opportunities to support local producers directly and keep your holiday spending local.
— On Christmas Day, once the gifts are opened, don’t let it be anticlimactic. Instead, spread birdseed and crumbled cookies outside for the wild things. Take a plate of food to a neighborhood shut-in or someone who has to work.
— Do something wonderful for someone else — anonymously.
Tags: dell joyce
December 2nd, 2009 at 3:52 pm
You seem to disapprove of spending money on made-in-China goods. If so, so you also disapprove that they are, along with Japan, supporting our national debt? In May of this year, they were holding $772 billion worth…and the quid pro quo is that they ge tto sell there goods here. You are upset that a potential US $180 billion might be returned to them for their goods.
I hear they are now becoming upset at the fall in value of the dollar…this means the dollars they get paid back with are less than what they purchased our debt at – they are not getting a decent (if any) return for their money. What do you think would happen if they stopped underwriting our country? Or decided they want to cash in those US bonds they are holding?
Might be more challenging than you’d care to contemplate….so don’ t be so tight with those dollars for Chinese goods – it keeps the international monetary wheels spinning and us out of national bankruptcy.
December 2nd, 2009 at 3:53 pm
You seem to disapprove of spending money on made-in-China goods. If so, do you also disapprove that they are, along with Japan, supporting our national debt? In May of this year, they were holding $772 billion worth…and the quid pro quo is that they get to sell their goods here. You are upset that a potential US $180 billion might be returned to them for their goods.
I hear they are now becoming upset at the fall in value of the dollar…this means the dollars they get paid back with are less than what they purchased our debt at – they are not getting a decent (if any) return for their money. What do you think would happen if they stopped underwriting our country? Or decided they want to cash in those US bonds they are holding?
Might be more challenging than you’d care to contemplate….so don’ t be so tight with those dollars for Chinese goods – it keeps the international monetary wheels spinning and us out of national bankruptcy.