Red or black: It's all the same to me

Every newscast, every newspaper, every radio station has been bemoaning the poor retailers who aren't raking it in this holiday season. You'd think this was the single most important story in the world.

I've long since reached the point where I play my little violin for them and shed a phony tear. I mean, do we really care whether or not they end the year in the black or in the red?

What really gets me is that the other part of the story isn't getting told. If people are buying less, first of all, hurray for them. But if some people are buying less or not at all, couldn't it mean that there are people doing without this holiday season? And isn't it those very people -- the ones who couldn't get their loved ones a gift or even a necessity -- we should save our sympathy for?

But, no. From the corporate news sources, trying to wring some sympathy from the public for the retailers, you'd think that we all owe them our allegiance and our money.

"I pledge allegiance to the stores of the United States of America...."

I'm just not a very good capitalist. In fact, I think we would all be fine if we had only, say, 5 percent of the retailers we currently have. I mean, just how many kinds of mustard are we entitled to choose from? How many ladies' apparel (I hate that word) stores do we need? How much stuff can we continue to buy and then dump into landfills before the Earth collapses under the weight of it all?

The sad part is that our economy is now dependent on all of us shopping every day, not just on Christmas. And when we don't do our part and buy, the effects are felt in China and other countries where people make all the stuff we buy. Have you ever wondered what those sweat-shop laborers must think of the people who buy some of the junk they crank out?

I'm not dumb. I know those stores employ people, and having them go under will hurt the economy. But I don't really care one whit for the companies that have to shut their doors because we've finally reached the point where we don't need what they sell. The thing is, we probably didn't need it in the first place.

Maybe we're finally realizing that what we need most isn't for sale in any store.