.jpg)
The House Finance Committee has recommended that the state restore $314,394 in funding to the Claremont, Colebrook, Keene and Milford District Courts. Oh, the hypocrisy!
Rep. Chris Nevins, R-Hampton, has introduced a bill to create a state "aeronautical fund" which would finance maintenance and capital improvements at all airports open to the public.
More Editorials >>>
- > Tax cap choice: You can't have one (36)
- > Super blunder: A $2.5 million Census ad (15)
- > Soldier's return: This small state grieves (5)
- > Who's irresponsible? A laughable attack in Concord (7)
- > Boutin for Senate: A real fiscal conservative (2)
- > Swimming in cash: Pursue pool sponsors (20)
- > UNH's big plan: More buildings! (23)
- > A bank scam: More wealth transfers (32)
- > Crunching credit: NH might make it worse (12)
- > Silencing speech: Hodes vs. Madison (65)
- > Tax hikes are good: So say NH Dem leaders (24)
- > Joseph W. McQuaid: Groundhog Day, Obama version (22)
- > Salesman Obama: Nobody's buying it (40)
- > Pare the budget: Pass HB 1643 (8)
- > DWI loopholes: NH has too many (25)
Andrew Cline has been editorial page editor of the New Hampshire Union Leader since October of 2001. His writing has appeared in more than 100 newspapers and magazines, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and National Review.New for the holidays: Scroogenomics
Print
Email
Mobile
Reader comments
By GEORGE F. WILL
Thursday, Nov. 26, 2009
Another huge value-destroying hurricane is about to slam America, destroying billions of dollars of value. Another Katrina? No, another Christmas.
This voluntary December calamity is explained in a darkly amusing little book that is about the size of an iPhone. "Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays" comes from a distinguished publisher, Princeton University Press, and an eminent author, Joel Waldfogel of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton business school. He says that the crux of Yuletide economics, which common sense suggests and research confirms, is:
Gifts that people buy for other people are usually poorly matched to the recipients' preferences. What the recipients would willingly pay for gifts is usually less than what the givers paid. The measure of the inefficiency of allocating value by gift-giving is the difference between the yield of satisfaction per dollar spent on gifts and the yield per dollar spent on recipients' own purchases.
By calculating the difference between the consumption of holiday goods (e.g., jewelry, but not gasoline) in December as opposed to November and January, you get a rough estimate of Christmas spending. Waldfogel's conservative estimate is that in 2007, Americans spent $66 billion on gifts and produced $12 billion less satisfaction than would have been produced if the recipients had spent the $66 billion on themselves.
At least the Christmas stimulus strengthens the economy, right? Wrong, says Waldfogel. If all spending justified itself, we would pay people to dig holes and then refill them -- or build bridges to unpopulated Alaskan islands. Spending is good if the purchaser, or the recipient of a gift, values the commodity more than he does the money it costs. Otherwise, there is a subtraction from society's store of value.
Christmas etiquette involves composing one's face to feign pleasure when unwrapping an unwelcome windfall -- say, a sweater of an appalling color and a style that went out in the 1940s -- and murmuring "Oh, you shouldn't have" without revealing that you mean exactly that. Price of the sweater: $50. Value to recipient: $0. Actually, less than zero, considering the psychological cost of the forced smile.
But, you say, what about sentimental value? Don't you value the thoughtfulness of dotty Uncle Ralph who gave you the sweater? Actually, Ralph's sentiment in selecting it was like your sentiment when you selected for him the candle shaped like Gandhi -- desperate bewilderment about what he might like.
Were it not for sentimentality about sentiments, which are highly overrated, we would behave rationally, giving cash, thereby avoiding value subtraction. We almost do that with wedding registries. And cash for Christmas, or semi-cash in the form of gift cards, no longer seems so tacky. Between 1998 and 2005, gift card sales grew 27 percent a year. They now are about one-third of Christmas spending and rank near the top of lists of preferred gifts.
Grandmothers, especially, should give cash to grandchildren. Instead they think, "What did I get when I was young?" and then they give a kaleidoscope to Jimmy, who wanted Grand Theft Auto IV and now wants to trade grandma for Grand Theft Auto IV.
A tenth of gift cards' values, worth billions of dollars, are never redeemed. The cards are lost Christmas morning in the blizzard of wrapping paper, or just forgotten. Waldfogel proposes that after a year, gift cards expire and the unredeemed values be given to charities.
Furthermore, he says, there are some goods -- e.g., Spam -- that people spend less on as they become richer, and there are other things on which people spend larger portions of their incomes as their incomes rise. These are called luxuries. One such is charity. So, particularly for the rich or ascetic person who has everything he or she wants, why not gift cards usable only for charities? Some organizations (e.g., Charity Navigator and charitygiftcertificates.org) facilitate this.
"There are worlds of money wasted, at this time of year, in getting things that nobody wants, and nobody cares for after they are got." So said Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1850.
Waldfogel says every generation thinks it invented both sex and Christmas excess. But retail sales statistics demonstrate that the "Yuletide bump" was a larger share of gross domestic product in 1935. Data from 1919 concerning the retail giants of the day -- mail-order companies (e.g., Sears and Montgomery Ward) and "dime stores" (e.g., F.W. Woolworth) -- actually show that Christmas sales as a share of the economy are about half as large as they once were. This means proportionally less value subtraction. Hallelujah.
.
George Will's e-mail address is georgewill@washpost.com.
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. © 1997-2010.
YOUR COMMENTS
Nice job playing to the greedy republican scrooge stereotype George. Albeit there is some truth to what you say.
My family stopped buying gifts for adult siblings years ago, just for the kids. We are much happier for it. Rule of thumb - if your Christmas list is more than 10 or 20 people long - talk to some of the people on it about canceling the exchange of gifts.
Put Christ first this Christmas!
- Jim, herestheword@yahoo.com
Sadly we will not only have to deal with the Bush/Cheney legacy for years to come but also the squealing from the conservative Republicanics that caused the economic crises which will dog our children for years. It was a two front looting that went on. Everything not nailed down was stolen or written into corrupt contracts that will continue on and laws were passed and corrupt conservatives were embedded, not with the military as they are chickenhawks but at every level of government. Judges, attorney generals offices. So don't confabulate. It will be very expensive to fix blunders made in those eight years but there is also moving the country forward to fix structural problems like health care. That's what Democrats are for - to fix things before the populace retreats into its oblivious haze and Republicanics go back to warmongering and looting.
- Bert, Deerfield
I guess some people will find any reason to prevent the economy from getting better. If they convince people that spending money this Xmas is wrong (unlike every other Xmas) they'll prevent any good news from the retail front. The last thing some people want is good news tied to the Obama admin. They'll even try to ruin Christmas if it stands in their way.
George Will's next column: How 'visions of sugar plums' dancing in our children’s' heads might be a sign of juvenile schizophrenia.
- Breyer S, Manchester, NH
Wouldn't this put those breathless twerps on TV talking about Black Friday out of work? They can't do anything else. Think twice, George!
- Leo, Canterbury
Mr. Will must be endorsing Prof. Waldfogel to give him a publicity boost. The professor wrote a marvelous summary of the season of orthodoxy (or as Matthew euphemizes, "non-optional social convention").
Mind you, the fact that something is economically wasteful doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. You might have non-economic goals in mind. If we pursued only measurable results, we'd give up smoking, drive in tiny cars, curtail our lives, and align our per-capita use of energy with that of Upper Volta, like the bureaucrats want.
And Robert of Deerfield has managed to make even this relate to Dick Cheney and stockbrokers. Please shut up and go away. At least "for the Holidays."
- Spike, Brentwood NH
Somebody needs to tell this guy that it's a "non-optional social convention."
- Matthew, Manchester
My gift to Robert in Deerfield will be a set of clear blinders. That way you can wear them and feel right at home and still catch a glimpse of the political corruption within your own party and be enlightened. But then ignorance is bliss and a better gift might be letting you believe what you post without any corrections by me.
But since this is not Christmas I will clue you in that Congress and only Congress can approve government spending (but maybe today a Czar can also) and Democrats have held the majority in Congress since 2006. And of course Louisiana would have received the 300 Million dollars they just got promised without voting for the Democrat health care takeover bill.
I can't wait to see what you get me since both parties take away my appetite as they play their divide and conquer game on the people as many will be wishing they had a lump of evil coal this winter.
- Deb, Derry
Sorry, I don't care one iota about retailers or how shopping holds the economy up at this time of year. It's meaningless, pointless. I do get something for my grandchildren, something small and measured more in love. I have had a pin for more than thirty years that I wear during Advent every year: it shows an empty manger and says 'Wanted, Christ in Christmas'. This is what the Christmas season is about, nothing else.
- Tom, Dover-Foxcroft, Me.
Interesting statistics. The christmas shopping season is indeed a time of excess shopping on stuff that most likely isn't needed or wanted. Personally, I'd prefer cash or gift cards to a necktie or piece of clothing that does not suit my lifestyle. Still, as Robert from Deerfield points out, we have much to be thankful for. Thanks to Bush & Cheney we haven't been reattacked by Islamic facist, and in another year we'll likely reduce the democrats strangle hold in government that threatens to reflatten an economy the democrats helped destroy in the first place.
- Jeff, Goffstown
Christmas must be a hoot at your house, George.
- Pat, Littleton
Good, now we get to add sullen ingratitude to the greed and looting. Go off in the corner somewhere and find some other statistics to distort. Even with all the economic distress and two wars caused by Republicanics, the rest of the world has much for which to be thankful. Bush is gone, Cheney is almost gone, the memories of the corruption is fading since there will be no prosecutions. Not everyone is as unfamiliar with their friends and relatives as Mr. Will. If you have never given a thoughtful gift, you might try it this year. That is where you consider what the other person might want not what you feel that person needs. Just think of all the gifts given to stock brokers and bankers by tax payers this year. Admittedly, there may be fewer no bid contracts but no Christmas is perfect.
- Robert, Deerfield
The reason that one-tenth of gift card value is never redeemed is simple... the cards like the gifts do not match the personal preference of the reciever.
If givers chose a prepaid VISA or MC over specialty retailer gift cards, I suspect that number would drop significantly.
- John Edward Mercier, Belmont
I heard the author of the book in an interview, yesterday and he doesn't suggest all shopping for Christmas is a waste, especially for children and loved ones. It's the people you don't know really well that you tend to waste money on.
I will be buying only two gifts this year, one for each of my children. Money is tight for the entire extended family, so we all agreed...no presents this year, except for children...and there's a $10 limit on them.
- DM, Hampton
NOTE: If you have visited this page before, newer comments may be hidden. Press F5, or hold down the Ctrl key while reloading or refreshing the page. (Another option for Firefox users is the Clear Cache add-on.)