Anderson response

The article that Gus posted about the fiscal cliff and the effects it has on Christmas shopping. This article was very interesting to me as we all need to do our Christmas shopping soon and it really made me surprised to hear that the amount of money that people will spend will decrease as the consumers “are not confident with purchasing”. It also shocked me that the author was talking about the stock market in this article and how it effects spending. Most of the thoughts that I had about the holiday seasons were only about how people will afford to buy presents and if they can spend money. It never occurred to me how stocks were such a large influence on spending by people like us. It also was interesting to me about how the new tax reforms are set to begin in January. This will have a huge effect on how much someone can spend based on the amount of money they can expect to be taxed. I never thought about how the stock market would have effects on the holiday season. The fact that peoples spending will be affected by the fiscal cliff is a very interesting thing to think about as the holiday season approaches us.

 

It was also amusing to me that the people who are in charge of projecting the fiscal cliff did not mention how people should spend their money in the near future. The advisors that are under Obama have recommended that there should be tax cuts to the middle class which would make them spend more money and feel more confident about their spending. Looking at the numbers, black Friday spending has been increased this year, as this black Friday spending was significantly higher than last year. This makes me very confused as to how consumer confidence in spending can be so low because the purchasing statistics from this year say differently. The spending that has happened lately will be very telling as we go into the season where buying is normally at an all-time high. The people spending the money need to realize that spending will only help the industries as the fiscal cliff would be greatly affected by this spending. Spending more money will help to make the fiscal cliff a little bit less looming as we enter it. Hopefully the industry will pick up to help our economy in the next few months.