I love Christmas. I'm not at all religious, but I love the idea of a season devoted to doing nice things for people, giving gifts, spending time with family and/or friends. So my wife and I braved the cold yesterday and headed out to the mall.
As we walked around, chatting about who was on our list and what we thought they might like, we, of course, also talked about our budget for this year. Unfortunately, because we bought a new house this year (and this new house was bigger than our small, two-bedroom apartment and we had to furnish it), our budget is a little smaller than last year's. So there is definite pressure to keep the cost of individual gifts down as well as to limit the number of people who actually make the list.
That got me to thinking about how a family with a couple of kids and only one income or two smaller incomes might try to get through the same conundrum. Unfortunately, I know that they will be tempted - and in fact will likely give in to that temptation - to shop at Wal*Mart. I've posted about my feelings for Wal*Mart before, and I have a link in my sidebar "Boycott Wal*Mart." I know how it feels to be in that position. I know the pressure parents feel to provide the best Christmas they can for their children. I also know that they are in a trap. Not much money to spend on Christmas, no place to go to save money and get as much as they can for the kids except the execrable grey, big-box store.
What it gets them in the end, the reason it's a trap can be found in two great articles I found via Pen-Elayne. Both from the New York Times, one article talks about how the Ohio Art Co., maker of everyone's favorite toy - Etch-A-Sketch - had to move production to China in order to cut costs. Why was pressure on costs so high? They wanted to keep their product on the shelves of the largest toy seller in the country.
Toys R' Us? Nope.
Wal*Mart.
The other article discusses how the Chinese workers making Etch-A-Sketch are paid below the legal minimum wage in China (23 cents a day) and get below the legal overtime wages during their up-to 84 hour work weeks.
So what is the pressure that forces American companies to shut down production and lay off thousands of workers and forces Chinese assembly plants to treat their workers even worse than normal? This paragraph says a lot:
The toy survived into the electronic age because of nostalgia and clever promotions. But its appeal has continued, in part, because it keeps getting cheaper to own. It sold for $3.99 when it was introduced. If it had kept pace with the consumer price index over its 43 years, it would retail for $23.69 today instead of $9.99.Wal*Mart: The retailer that goes back to its suppliers every year and asks "how much cheaper can I get your product this year?" The company that does not care that raw materials to make the product have gone up. The company that does not care that health care costs for the people that make the product have gone up. The company that only wants to "roll back" the prices every year. The company that offers "low prices, every day."
So the family that cannot afford to shop elsewhere is, unknowingly, contributing to the growing population of families unable to afford to shop anywhere else. Contributing, in fact, to the growing population of families that cannot shop at all for Christmas.
So as we made our way home with our bags, to our warm new house, my wife and I were happy that we were able to get gifts for our friends and family. We were happy that we were able to figure out a way to keep within our budget, without contributing to the further Walmart-ization of the U.S. We were glad that we weren't presented with such a choice.
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