Jedi Mind Tricks

As I watched a half dozen people picking through Christmas clearance items at Target today, I thought, "Who the hell is already thinking about next Christmas?" I guess I shouldn't be complaining that stockings, tree ornaments and cookie cutters were 90% off, but I could write an entire book about that picture; it says a lot about American retail. Supply and demand is such a funny thing. I remember when the second generation iPods came out. People were finally starting to acknowledge the conveniency of MP3 players. I told my dad he should invest in Apple stock (more than once), but he ended up listening to Jim Cramer and got something else. When Apple's stock increased 500% just under a year later, he regretted it. Everything is so mass-produced that retailers are practically forced to give away things that they know will never do more than collect dust and take up inventory. Then new shit comes in and everyone is willing to pay up to 30% more than the retail value to be the first to own it. A great example is video games; X-Box games are about $60 when they first come out. A month later the price drops to $39. So, I guess the moral of the story is that people are not careful about how they spend their money. Every dollar spent is a vote. If no one wanted to spend $60 on a video game, then they would be cheaper.