How much crazier can Black Friday get?

[xchrom]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_BLACK_FRIDAY_WHATS_TO_BLAME?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-11-27-07-38-00

NEW YORK (AP) -- Pepper-sprayed customers, smash-and-grab looters and bloody scenes in the shopping aisles. How did Black Friday devolve into this?

As reports of shopping-related violence rolled in this week from Los Angeles to New York, experts say a volatile mix of desperate retailers and cutthroat marketing has hyped the traditional post-Thanksgiving sales to increasingly frenzied levels. With stores opening earlier, bargain-obsessed shoppers often are sleep-deprived and short-tempered. Arriving in darkness, they also find themselves vulnerable to savvy parking-lot muggers.

Add in the online-coupon phenomenon, which feeds the psychological hunger for finding impossible bargains, and you've got a recipe for trouble, said Theresa Williams, a marketing professor at Indiana University.

"These are people who should know better and have enough stuff already," Williams said. "What's going to be next year, everybody getting Tasered?"

[LiberalEsto]

1. The 1% are watching this and giggling

It's their favorite entertainment of the holiday season.

[Tripper11]

2. Not only that, but news reports I saw...

were saying how it was a success because people spent more money than last year. So the more violent we are, the more we spend, therefore the more we help the economy? Christ almighty, what has the world come to??

[Life Long Dem]

11. "Sales rose an estimated 6.6 percent to a record $11.4 billion on Black Friday,"...

typically the busiest shopping day of the year for Americans, while the traffic at stores rose 5.1 percent, according to ShopperTrak.
...

ShopperTrak has estimated that sales for all of November and December will rise about 3 to 3.3 percent.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/45446628

[polichick]

3. Black Friday is the perfect symbol for the sickness that pervades this society.

[Odin2005]

8. I think so too.

[The Last Blue Dog]

4. How much crazier can Black Friday shoppers get?

People cannot control the bargain offer policies of stores; however, they can control how the react to them.

[bigwillq]

10. Hello.

Welcome to DU! :hi:

[TBF]

5. Capitalism knows no bounds. nt

[jberryhill]

6. Is it really crazy?

When tens of millions of people do anything, it is a certainty that some of them will do stupid things.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people staying at home on Friday fell down their own stairs and many of them died.

This "Black Friday is crazy" thing is just part of the media hype about it.

[sufrommich]

9. Agree. Considering that every big box store and every mall

was swamped with shoppers on Black Friday it's not surprising that a few were crazy . Personally, I wouldn't be caught dead in that crowd, but I couldn't care less if others want to shop on Black Friday.

[Odin2005]

7. I think it's time for some national soul-searching. Consumerism is destroying us.

Getting more stuff does not make you happy, it is an addiction that just drives you to buy more things. material goods do not create happiness, a good society creates happiness.

These people are acting like drug addicts desperate for another hit and are willing to do anything to get their hit, even steal, injure, or murder.