O INSUSTENTÁVEL PESO DO CONSUMO

Drop how you shop
Paco Underhill
We can't sustain an economy so totally focused on consumer spending.

We are a society of shoppers. We have been since we were prehistoric hunters and gatherers. From the souks of the Middle East to the night markets of Asia to the concourses of Tysons Corner, human beings come together to browse, bargain and purchase. Shopping isn't just about the acquisition of goods -- whether the season's hot toy or some sharp tool necessary for surviving the winter -- it's also about how we interact with each other.
For better or worse, the holidays have long been synonymous with shopping. And that has come to mean Black Friday, the start of the shopping sprint between Thanksgiving and Christmas and historically one of the busiest shopping days of the year. Over the past decade, retail marketers have staged events -- 5 a.m. openings with "doorbuster" deals -- designed to drive traffic to their stores, even risking stampedes for the sake of more sales. Particularly for specialty merchants, these five weeks are critical in making their annual bottom line.
This year the stakes are even higher. Many retail chains had a disastrous 2008 and are hoping for a miraculous recovery this season. However, some of them are not going to bounce back, and the results will prove instructive. The current way we measure the health of our economy, from the markets to consumer confidence ratings, depends on our overspending. But, simply put, we cannot continue to be a country where more than 70 percent of our economy is based on consumer spending, especially when that spending is based on credit.

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