The rich treated themselves like royalty this holiday season (AP)

[somone]

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2011-01-11-wealthy-retail-sales_N.htm

Wealthy treated themselves during the holidays
By Anne D'Innocenzio and Mae Anderson, Associated Press

NEW YORK — The rich treated themselves like royalty this holiday season. That spun the holidays into gold for Tiffany and other high-end retailers. Wealthier shoppers traded up to more expensive gold and diamond jewelry from silver charms at Tiffany. At Saks and Neiman Marcus designer clothing and handbags were the hot holiday items...

On Tuesday, Tiffany raised its outlook for the year because of better-than-expected holiday sales, and noted particular strength in more expensive fine jewelry and diamond rings. The jeweler's report backs up strong December sales reports from pricey department stores Saks, Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom. All reported significantly higher revenue than a year ago.

Upper-income shoppers splurged, particularly during the last week before Christmas, a Gallup poll showed. Average daily spending reported by upper-income shoppers rose 45% to $183 during the week ending Dec. 26. For all shoppers, the figure rose only 18% to $85 that week. Luxury sales were helped by many well-heeled customers buying gifts for themselves... The Dow Jones industrial average is up 19% since the beginning of July. The return of bonuses on Wall Street and elsewhere also have helped the wealthy feel better about more conspicuous consumption, said John Lonski, chief economist of Moody's Capital Markets Research Group. "Financially speaking, wealthy Americans much better withstood the latest downturn than have lower-income Americans," he said. "There was a drop-off there for a while, but it seems as though they've rebounded quite nicely."

That doesn't offer much solace to lower-income Americans, who are still facing a housing slump and high unemployment. But it is good news for the economy, because the richest 5% of Americans, those making at least $207,000 annually, account for about 14% of all spending. And spending accounts for about 70% of the economy. "What you would like to see is consumer spending improvement distributed more broadly," Lonski said. "The lower- to middle-income segment of the population, after bearing brunt of the slump, is lagging behind rest of economy."

[JustAnotherGen]

1. What's missing in there

Who some of us were shopping for - my boyfriend and I 'adopted' two families this year at Christmas. 5 kids had Christmas because of us. Not tooting my horn - and I don't doubt there WERE a lot of obnoxious spenders . . . but a few, just a few of us, did the right thing instead of buying each other shit we don't need! :rofl:

[rfranklin]

2. Good for you...Jesus is keeping score...

but these assholes who buy $10,000 watches to impress people with $5,000 watches are useless.

[Initech]

3. And there were a lot of ads for a lot of really expensive shit this year.

[moondust]

4. Diamonds and cars.

Not just any cars: BMW, Lexus, Infinity, etc.

[Initech]

6. I wanted to throw up every time I saw that Lexus commercial.

[JVS]

5. A housing slump does not harm lower-income Americans. It harms the upper middle class.