The Observational Economist on Holidays
Why Trump's pre-inauguration Thanksgiving and Christmas portend a downturn
The first time I heard the phrase “Black Friday” I was teenager in the 1970s. It was term to desribe the day after Thanksgiving when the Christmas shopping season officially kicked off. And for reasons I really have never understood, Corporate America, Wall Street, and the populace have accepted it as an economic barometer.
By the time I was an adult with a job, family, and a real understanding of economics, I realized what an absolute crock that concept was. Unfortunately, perception is reality.
Just ask a Republican voter. After after 8 straight quarters of positive economic growth (it’s about to be 9), the GOP convinced half of Americans that the price of eggs and gas was too high.
Never mind that gas prices averaged $2.79 a gallon just before Election Day nationally and that egg consumption is fairly static1 and that the post-COVID price gouging in the egg businees had returned us back to the pre-COVID pricing.2
Of course, it was Bidenflation in 2022 and early 2023, when oil companies, grocery cartels, and retailers took advantage of supply chain problems to crank up prices and reap billions in profits. The egg industry alone saw its prices soar 700%!3
Of course, now that consumers have shown their willness to pay the high cost of eggs, the term limited Donald Trump is not going to give us cheap eggs and grits. The story being sold by Corporate Media right now is that a listeria outbreak has impacted the egg industry and we won’t be seeing lower egg prices any time soon.
So you get Trump, high priced eggs, and the chance to find out that tariffs on Canada and Mexico will affect your price at the pump for gas.
But back to the Holidays.
If you want to know how good Christmas is going to be for the nation’s retailers, check the calendar.
Thanksgiving is the 4th Thursday in November. Christmas is the 25th of December. So just add 24 shopping days in December to the days in November after Thanksgiving and you have between 26 and 31 days of shopping glee.
The latest Thanksgiving can fall is November 28th and the earliest it can occur is November 22nd. There are only 26 Christmas shopping days this year. If you want to convince a gullible workforce and pliable consumers that the economy is not chugging along quite well, the calendar just bailed Corporate America out.
Next year, the excuse for a lack of wage growth, benefit cuts, and no end of year bonuses will be tariffs.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/183678/per-capita-consumption-of-eggs-in-the-us-since-2000/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/236852/retail-price-of-eggs-in-the-united-states/
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/29/business/egg-profits-cal-maine/index.html