Black Friday

Economics professors that ignore economic truths crack me up. Actually, they usually crack me no matter what their take on the economy, if only because they turn out to be dead wrong so often. Whenever the economy takes a powder, there's lots of economics guys telling us how to fix the problem. Nobody ever seems to ask, "Hey, genius, why didn't you see this coming in the first place?"

Anyway, take Robert H. Frank, an economics professor at Cornell. He wrote a piece in the New York Times that is full of all kinds of baloney (he also wrote a book that has the words "Common Good" in the title, so obviously he knows how to live your life better than you do; which is to say, he's full of it).

These people have apparently not read Robert Frank.

His latest piece is about Black Friday, the day when Americans race out to buy discount goods and sometimes beat each other up or pepper spray each other over $2 waffle irons. Frank doesn't like this. He thinks it's bad. He thinks you should be in bed at a reasonable time on Thanksgiving Eve, and that you shouldn't be out shopping too early in the morning. Frank, like many of his Ivy League ilk, thinks you need some guidance in the game of life. In this case, his way to get you out of the stores and back with your mother-in-law is to...tax Black Friday.

Let's just tiptoe through the tulips of Robert Frank's nonsense. It is an essay that reeks of arrogance:

In recent years, large retail chains have been competing to be the first to open their doors on Black Friday. The race is driven by the theory that stores with the earliest start time capture the most buyers and make the most sales. [It takes a univeristy professor to figure this out?] For many years, stores opened at a reasonable hour [which hour is reasonable?]. Then, some started opening at 5 a.m. [Oops. I guess 5 a.m. is unreasonable], prompting complaints from employees [name three of them] about having to go to sleep early on Thanksgiving and miss out on time with their families.

He has to be kidding. I find it hard to believe that Robert Frank stays up at night worrying about people that have to work the night shift. Besides, if it's a case of missing out on time with families, why doesn't Frank worry about gas station attendants, steel workers, cops, nurses, firefighters, late night bartenders, and 7-11 clerks? My guess is because those jobs don't have an anniversary date in the headlines, and they don't have the icky "consumerism" vibe that guys like Frank dislike so much.

Though I smell a rat when it comes to Frank's family-bleeding-heart-syndrome nonsense, I'll give him another crack at it:

Last year Toys “R” Us opened at 10 p.m. on Thanksgiving. This year, Wal-Mart will do the same. The costs to store owners and their employees and families are enormous: millions must now spend time away from home on the one occasion that all Americans, regardless of religion or cultural background, share as a family holiday.

What is it about university professors that make them think they know how to run a store better than a store manager, or work the night shift better than a working father of three? And why does Frank feel that he knows how you should spend your Thanksgiving? Want to collect some overtime? Want to surf Facebook? Want to do handstands on the corner of 5th and Main? Want to play handball with a piece of cement? As long as you're not breaking the law or writing crappy stuff for the New York Times, I don't care, and neither should Frank.

"The cost to store owners and the employees and families are enormous." Frank seems to forget that nobody is dragging these people into the store and forcing them to work under the whip. What these people are doing is called working. They have what is called a job. It gives them this thing called money, which they can use to put food on the tables of the families that Robert Frank is so worried about.

Note to the arrogant writer: these people aren't working at Wal-Mart and Target because they want to give you something to write about. They work there to make a living. If it wasn't worth it, they wouldn't do it, and neither would the stores. This is called "economics," Mr. Economics Professor.

As every mature adult realizes [take that, you damn immature conservatives!], we have to tax something, and the revenue from my 6-6-6 plan [his plan - besides having a horrible number for the marketing people to deal with - is to tax everything sold on Thanksgiving Thurs/Fri between 6pm and 6am at 6%] would make it possible to reduce taxes on other activities that are actually useful [name just three activities you would reduce taxes on, Bobby; I beg you]. Best of all, it would encourage Americans to spend Thanksgiving night where they really want to — in bed.


The arrogance is astounding. "Other activities that are actually useful...Encourage Americans to spend Thanksgiving where they really want to..." How does this guy know what people want? Robert Frank, just because you don't think cheap t-shirts and discount toys for the kids aren't useful, doesn't mean the single mom working on minimum wage won't appreciate the sales.

I'm getting tired of the people that are so worried about the poor that they decide to hammer the poor for being poor. Who does the man think is shopping at Wal-Mart and Target at 5am? Rockefeller? Black Friday is a time of year that a hurting family can grab some stuff on the cheap, while the employees can pick up some extra hours and overtime (and there's my arrogance; does it have to be poor people shopping at 5am? No. It could be anybody. And it's their business, not mine - pun intended).

If it's the odd Black Friday violence you're worried about, sure, the odd idiot might throw a punch here and there. That's life in large crowds. It draws headlines and makes people like Frank wet their pants, but it's few and far between. It's hardly a good enough reason to hose the guy who's looking for a cheap leaf blower.

When Robert Frank sits down at his computer on Sunday to tell people yet again how to live their own lives, I hope there's thousands of football fans saying what a great deal they got on their 50-inch TV. It should at least please Frank that they're spending time at home.

Update:

From CNN: Preliminary reports for Black Friday indicate that retailers may have seen their strongest sales ever during the all-important kick-off to the holiday shopping season.

Retail sales on Black Friday climbed 6.6% this year to an estimated $11.4 billion.

I don't know how this squares with Frank's funny theory that everyone in the country wants to stay home on Thanksgiving, but maybe he'll explain at a later date.
Photo: Michael Nagle/Getty Images