Black Bully : The Aspects Of The Black Friday

Black Friday shopping is a controversial issue in the United States; while many believe the day after Thanksgiving is a part of holiday festivities, others view it as destructive. Throughout “Black Friday: Consumerism Minus Civilization,” Andrew Leonard argues that the chaos of Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in which crowds of Americans shop all night for extremely low prices, lessens the sophistication of Americans and the true meaning of the holidays. People become so consumed in the idea of endless sale prices that they forget to embrace what they already have, such as family, food, and shelter. He believes that Black Friday shopping has become out of control and describes the negative effects of excessive consumerism. he explains how most consumers act completely insane while Black Friday shopping and how society encourages this behavior by creating commercials and advertisements. Furthermore, Leonard states that it hurts the economy and damages one’s mental health. While Leonard is probably wrong when he claims that Black Friday shopping is completely troublesome to America’s well-being, he is right that consumerism overpowers the true significance of Thanksgiving.

Black Friday is the following Thanksgiving Day in the United States, traditionally the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Black Friday is not an official holiday, but many workers have the day off as part of the Thanksgiving holiday, this increases the number of potential shoppers. Retailers often decorate for the Christmas and holiday season weeks beforehand. Many retailers open extremely early, with most of the retailers typically opening at 5 A.M. or even earlier. Retailers use Black Friday to kick off the holiday season to use much of their products to go from the red to the black.

The 20th century was a time of enormous changes in American life. The history of the United States from 1918 through 1945 was World War I era, the Great Depression, and World War II.

As Black Friday has progressed along with retailors marketing their products and their sales, it has become a national day of shopping to get the best deals. Americans mainly go shopping on this day to get huge deals for Christmas presents. Stores have even taken this great opportunity to open their establishments for 24 hours. Just last year, consumers spent a whopping $57,400,000,000 with each consumer individually spending $410 on average. The #1 retailor customers purchased from and camped out at was Best Buy. All of the statistics are based on 2013 and this year was projected to be an 11% increase.

Black Saturday was a series of bushfires that occurred on Saturday, 7th of February, 2009. It was one of the most devastating bushfires in Australian history, and changed many Victorian lives forever. Three years later, the communities are rebuilding, the landscape is healing and flora and fauna are returning.

Thanksgiving traditions don't end on Thanksgiving Day. In the 1950s, the day after Thanksgiving was called Black Friday by factory managers because so many workers called in sick and the Philadelphia Police Department took to calling the day Black Friday to describe the traffic jams, crowds and shoplifters during the start of the holiday shopping season. Black Friday signals the start of the holiday shopping season, but it may be a tradition that's continuing to evolve as stores vie to be the earliest to open Thanksgiving Day.

First, it all started when new inventions were coming out such as refrigerators and automobiles. People who could not afford them in the first place were buying them off credit. So already people had become in debt (Hayes). Then the stocks started to deplete and people got nervous and tried to sell them in a hurry. This caused the market to crash and everyone lost their money in the bank. At first the poor thought the rich could only be affected but soon that was not the case (Hayes). This day became known as Black Thursday and will be remembered forever.

The aftermath of the Stock Market Crash of 1929 went something like this- unemployment rose to twenty-five percent, wages fell to forty-two percent, United States economic growth decreased fifty percent, and world trade plummeted sixty-five percent. The Dow Jones Industry Average dropped twenty-five percent in four days, losing thirty billion dollars in market value. That is equivalent to three hundred ninety-six billion dollars today- more than the total cost of World War I. Billions of dollars were lost, wiping out thousands of investors. By 1932 stocks were worth only twenty percent of their original value in the summer of 1929. And in less than a year, the Dow dropped ninety percent from its record-high. “In the aftermath of Black Tuesday,

The Stock Market crash was something nobody expected, it came out of nowhere and striked fear into the american people. Many people started to panic which lead to a lot of poverty and people struggling economically to support their families. It all started on October 29, 1929 which today we know it as “Black Tuesday.”. “On Black Tuesday when the stock market crashed, billions of the people’s and Bank’s dollars were lost as the world went downward” ( Stock Market Crash). This was known to be the largest economic downturn in history. After all of the chaos with the economy the crash of the stock market led to the Great Depression. The Great Depression advanced the overall economic collapse of the U.S which lead to a lot of symptoms.

“On October 29,1929, Black Tuesday hit Wall Street as investors traded some 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Billions of dollars were lost, wiping out thousands of investors. In the aftermath of Black Tuesday, America and the rest of the industrialized world spiraled downward..” (Stock Market Crash of 1929) The Stock Market Crash was significant because it marked the start of the Great Depression. The Great Depression was the biggest economic downturn in American History. It not only caused millions of people to become jobless, but it also caused thousands to lose their life savings. People started to live in horrible conditions and they even began starving.

While the captivating Roaring Twenties seemed as if it were a time of exceptional success through rapidly increasing economic prosperity and somewhat radical social change, it ended with a rather large bang, leaving the citizens of the United States encumbered with numerous hardships. Hallucinations of this prosperity were created through a faulty system of credit. This flawed practice of loaning money to undeserving people manifested a shaky foundation on which the US economy sat upon. Building up such tension in the economy lead up to the stock market crash of 1929. As a result of the crash, many people were left unemployed, creating a massive restraint on industrial production. The Great Crash created the most detrimental impact to the United States during the 1920s by generating mass amounts of poverty among people.

After the Civil War the American economy became more and more industrialized, with many people and immigrants moving from rural areas to urban areas to find work in various industries. As a result of this rapid industrialization in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, there were many issues with this rapid growth. These problems included: unsafe working conditions, low wages, and very little representation for workers rights.

Overall, the stock market crash was not handled too well as history has shown. Stock market prices began to decline in September and early October 1929 and on October eighteenth the major fall began (1). Panic set in as stock prices dropped at an incredible rate (1). On October twenty-fourth, 1929 (Black Thursday), the Dow Jones stock opened with a drop of eleven percent in value (2).

At the tail end of the Roaring Twenties, the previous Stock Market prosperity crashed on Black Monday, which was October 28, 1929. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DOW) fell by 13 percent, and it continued to fall by 12 percent the next day, or Black Tuesday. The beginnings of the Great Crash involved brokerage houses, financial institutions that help the buying and selling of financial securities. Buyers put down a portion of the price for stocks and borrowed loans for the rest. In turn, the money earned from the stocks helped pay for the loans. Thus, the stocks soared price-wise. However, the Federal Reserve Board questioned the stock speculations, the purchasing of high-risk stocks for a high-reward, and took action in New York. The Reserve

People may get caught up in the excitement of the day, and that can help them to spend even more money. While waiting in line, customers at the front of the line seem to be excited and happy. However, at the end of the line, customers appear to be more frustrated and anxious. Some consumers plan their Black Friday shopping trips weeks in advance. There are many websites available for people to view Black Friday advertisements online, before they are supposed to be released to the public. Walmart has tried year after year for the advertisements not to be leaked, but they usually end up on these websites before they are supposed to (4 Years Strong: Walmart Sends Another Cease & Desist, 2011). Stores may not want to have their advertisements released early for a couple of reasons. First, consumers having the ability to research products and having too much time to explore all of their options may mean that consumers will not make as many spontaneous purchases on Black Friday. They also do not want to have their competition see their deals, and then have them beat their prices. Having the advertisements earlier though means consumers are able to plan what stores they want to go to, which may lead to less chaos on the actual day. People are motivated by saving money on Black Friday. Some consumers may even see it as a competition. For some, because there is only a limited selection available for many of the items that are