How’s the Economy Really Doing?
November 29, 2008
by Amy Siskind
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Wondering how the economy is REALLY doing? Look no further than a Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, New York — 20 miles East of Manhattan.
A worker was trampled to death yesterday in an early morning rush to get inside for a sale special. According to the New York Times:
Tension grew as the 5 a.m. opening neared. Someone taped up a crude poster: “Blitz Line Starts Here.”
By 4:55, with no police officers in sight, the crowd of more than 2,000 had become a rabble, and could be held back no longer. Fists banged and shoulders pressed on the sliding-glass double doors, which bowed in with the weight of the assault. Six to 10 workers inside tried to push back, but it was hopeless.
Suddenly, witnesses and the police said, the doors shattered, and the shrieking mob surged through in a blind rush for holiday bargains. One worker, Jdimytai Damour, 34, was thrown back onto the black linoleum tiles and trampled in the stampede that streamed over and around him.
Around the same time of day a few miles down the road, at a Wal-Mart in Farmingdale, a shopper was trampled by a crowd of customers. Fortunately, she survived.
So, if anyone out there was looking for anecdotal evidence as to how the American public is really feeling about the economy, check no further.
Given the tough economic times that we are in, clear and dedicated leadership is needed. We need leaders who have positive track records, not divisive men such as Summers. Let’s hope for better picks from President-elect Obama going forward: some change we CAN believe in.
Amy,
I think you are giving the “tramplers” an easy out by blaming this heart wrenching travesty on the economy. This was not a crowd of hungry and poor citizens stampeding to get in line to buy bread. Rather, this crowd was besotted because they wanted to get the best deals on plasmas and other electronics. To me, this speaks of the grossness of our culture and vapid materialism – not the economy.
It was my husbands birthday today and I gave him nothing. Nothing but a nice meal with his family at home. I did not need to “trample” anyone to do this.
You could be right Ali; but I can’t recall a single ocurrence of this type of thing in the past (let alone almost two incidents in the same area on the same day).
I believe that the people of this country are hurting. Folks are losing their jobs, their homes, and sadly their dignity.
We need leaders who can lead!
Amy, Thank you for keeping the eye on the ball…Summers should not be even close to Obama, if he had any shame…
I truly don’t understand feminist organizations…although when I see what happens with our Latino Organizations, I see many parallels…we are always sacrificed for “the good of the party(ies)” (a party to which both Constituencies were key to win, but both of whom got several slaps in the face…(Rahm Emmanuel as COS, when he said no immigration reform in the first term?). Cecilia Munoz, who never denounced that BO lied to Latinos, and that he voted for the construction of the Wall between Mexico and the US, and also introduced and supported the introduction of poison pills to defeat the McCain-Kennedy bill, got her prize for being unconditional to the democratic party.
Seems the good of the party and our good (women and Latinos) is not the same.
Valentina,
The New Agenda would like to find some hispanic women’s rights groups to partner with. Could you suggest any in your area that we should approach?
Interesting (and grim) juxtaposition: I heard Benjamin Barber, the author of this book Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole*, on the radio yesterday. He talked about how the North American economy is driven by consumerism, and in order for that to work, we’re constantly being urged to buy the newest gadget, brand, game, or whatever other “must have” object, or our lives will be incomplete.
This, he said, is why Bush urged people to go shopping after 9/11 – because if people stop shopping, it all falls apart.
I remember a friend who came back from 6 months in Malaysia and remarked at walking into a specialty cookware store and looking at the displays, carefully arranged and lit by halogen bulbs, and realizing, this is what we worship, this is our god.
The events at those stores yesterday just confirm for me that the author and my friend are correct. We’ve become such good consumers that the idea that it all might end soon is intolerable to us. It drove those people into a frenzy: They were storming the temple, demanding one last favor from a benevolent retail god.
— — —
* Here’s a quote from the Washington Post review of Barber’s book: In a never-ending effort to make consumption the centerpiece of every American’s existence, marketers have succeeded in infantilizing adults (“kidults,” Barber calls us). We’re increasingly governed by impulse. No wonder consumer debt and personal bankruptcy have never been higher. Feeling dominates thinking, me dominates us, now dominates later, egoism dominates altruism, entitlement dominates responsibility, individualism dominates community, and private dominates public. Imagine having the ship of state guided by leaders elected by a nation of 12-year-olds. That, according to Barber, is what we’ve got.
Summers is a ‘divisive’ figure only in the sense that Hillary was ‘divisive’ — both of them were attacked with outrageous personal charges.
They, like Gore, were policy wonks; their words were misquoted or distorted. Summers was chosen and promoted by the Clintons throughout the 90s; as a Clintonista, I trust their judgment.
– mirrored at http://pumaforsummers.blogspot.....where.html
Amy,
That is a great question and initiative.
I live in Atlanta, and although I am not related to any such group (??), I will find out. My explanation for this situation is that I never felt I fit. I’m 200% pro choice (different than pro-abortion); I am 200% pro-other’s rights to do what they want without gvt. interference (gays/lesbians); i’m right of center in economic issues. Finally, I am extremely proud of my ethnicity, but before anything else I am a woman, and what makes me strong and what I am most proud of, is of being a woman…some people have never liked that, including my father (just as some people are surprised I’m proud to be Mexican
I recommended the site to a woman I just met in a trip I took to Mexico last week (the wife of a former college classmate), who is very involved in women’s issues. Specifically, the women’s organization she belongs to is working to train and get women into politics and public office, and is a National level organization. If you would also like to set up ties at the international level, I will get the name of the organization (I don’t have the card at hand right now, I have to look for it).
I also have been promoting this website with other women, here in the US and MExico, including my sister who is Left of Left in Mexico (She is a professor/researcher at UNAM), and who is surprised to find out how meddled feminism is, all over the world not only in Mexico. She has been delighted and we have found great common ground in this site, the confluence, and TGW. I think these conversations saved our relationship over the election
I apologize for my extension, I just wanted to make evident that there are many eyes and heads looking at TNA beyond the ones who post. I will get back to you on the org’s
Seems like not only Reaganites believe in tax-cuts as the best means to confront an economic crisis.
“Arriving in New York ahead of this weekend’s G20 summit of the leading global economies in Washington, the Prime Minister warned “the cost of inaction will be far greater than the cost of any action”.
Mr Brown signaled his intention to press world leaders to produce their own “fiscal stimulus” packages of tax cuts and spending increases.”
Dawn,
Thank you for the book recommendation. It is also ironic that the victim was Haitian, humbly working at Walmart as a temp and yet was murdered by this uncontrollable impulse of American consumerism.
This incident makes me feel ashamed to be American.
I don’t get how these two insane events provide any evidence, even anecdotal, regarding the state of our economy, which then leaps to a brief discussion of Summers. Come on.
Ditto Anna. All you have to do is go to google news and search “black friday injured shopping” and look at the sort dates on the left. With just a five minute cursory reading of the articles I found incidences every year all the way back into the 90′s. Blaming the economy for this kind of behavior is excusing it and making victims out of the villians. Is the economy somehow relevant to the incidents of stampedes and trampling at the European soccer games? Of course not, and I don’t think it is relevant here either. This was not a bread line, it was a wii and flat panel TV line. If the economy were in any way related, why would there have even been a crowd with disposable income for non-essential “holiday” sales. I live in a large city and every year I notice that people get ruder and drive more aggressively. Nobody even stops to help little old ladies change tires anymore. Is this somehow related to the economy too? This one just doesn’t pass my common sense sniff test!
Also I’m not at all clear as to how this relates to women’s rights or feminism. I mean sure, you could say the economy relates to women’s rights because they are disproportionally effected by hard economic times, but this article in no way addresses the economy as it pertains to women or suggests any way women can help other women in difficult times. I just don’t get this one.
Fsteele:
As a highly visible public figure, Summers chose to make the comment that the cause for underrepresentation of women in math and the sciences might be genetic. I am not aware of him ever having backed away from the comment. African Americans are underrepresented in these disciplines. Had Summers chosen to make the same statement about African Americans: (1) there would have been a firestorm at the time, and (2) he would now be radioactive.
In a sense, this is in the “what is good for the goose is good for the gander” arena. If it is objectionable when said about racial or religious minorities, it should be objectionable when said about women.
John, I don’t think this is the place for a discussion on what Summers is accused of saying. If you want to pursue it, I have some material on that at my blog.
Fsteele.
Follows is what my understanding of what Summers “is accused of saying”:
In January 2005, Summers described, at a Conference on Diversifying the Science & Engineering Workforce sponsored by the National Bureau of Economic Research, the different ways of explaining why there were more men than women in high-end science and engineering positions. He gave the three main hypotheses in the following order: that more men than women were willing to make the commitment in terms of time and flexibility demanded by high-powered jobs, that there were differences in the intrinsic abilities of men and women (more specifically, men’s higher variance in aptitude, abilities or preferences relevant to science and engineering), and that the discrepancy was due to discrimination or socialization. He also stated his view that the order given reflected the relative importance of each of the three hypotheses.
Below I have paraphrased and changed men and women to white people and black people. I really believe that had Summers made this statement he would have been hounded out of public life.
The three main hypotheses, in order of relative importance, that more white people than black people were willing to make the commitment in terms of time and flexibility demanded by high-powered jobs, that there were differences in the intrinsic abilities of white people and black people (more specifically, white people’s higher variance in aptitude, abilities or preferences relevant to science and engineering), and that the discrepancy was due to discrimination or socialization.
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