A cure for cancer, fusion energy, and a colony on Mars.
That’s exactly what happens in Thailand. New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day are both public holidays, there’s lots of gift-giving, and it feels a lot like Christmas, complete with Christmas-style decorations.
Didn’t know that. I was thinking of the Soviet Union, but it is interesting that other places do it the same basic way.
Chanukah would still be here. And New Year’s Eve.
Hopefully reduction in spending would mean that overall we’d spend less on crap we didn’t need and retailers adjust to smaller revenues. There’s no reason the economy has to be the size it is. If we made less but spent less, we’d be in the same position
And it wouldn’t get played. And the existence of humanity would be vastly improved thereby.
Well I’m not surprised that other cultures have big gift giving days - I am surprised that some people think it’s the only way for an economy to work. i.e. “if Christmas went away we’d just choose some other day”. I see no reason to assume that so much of our purchasing has to take place in one mo th.
I quickly scanned and misread the title as “What would happen to our economy if Christians ceased to exist”.
It was thought provoking.
The question mistakes the economy as first the retail economy and then for the variable consumption. This is confusing the economy with the household economics. Removing a large consumer event probably only smooths out the total consumption of the households.
In any case most commentators here are making a major error and like the OP confusing a variable portion of the consumption for the entirety.
It will be helpful for the curious to look at the World Bank data table for the household final consumption as the percent of GDP. It will quickly become clear that for most of the well-functioning economies like most of the upper income and the middle income countries, the household final consumption is in the 40-60 percent of the GDP range.
even the grandly consumerist USA it is ~69% and it is not reasonable to think that a majority of the household consumption is done on one holiday.
Yule be sorry.
I don’t think anyone is claiming that Christmas consumption is all consumption. But I doubt that most people would buy all the things they get as Christmas presents over the year any way. There is also a seasonal bump in employment for Christmas - do you claim that these jobs would get distributed over the year? I doubt it, since much retail staff is under used for much of the year, and I doubt that even if some Christmas retail activity gets redistributed there would be the need for an increase in staffing of the level we see at Christmas.
Then there are products which would not exist at all without Christmas, such as Christmas trees and ornaments. And a big chunk of the greeting card industry.
No they are claiming by implication that the Christmas is 1) a significant/major portion of the household consumption and 2) that household consumption is the signifcant driver of the overall economy, and 3) that the Christmas consumption would not be otherwise at all made if it ceased to exist.
These three things have to be true for the Christmas to have a significant economic impact by itself rather than only just bunching up some level of consumption in time.
In the USA perhaps the assumption 2) is logical, although the idea the american economy becomes greatly changed by the Christmas must then have 1) as a strong effect.
So unless the household consumption overall is dominated by the Christmas, the idea of the Christmas changing the economy is a gross analytical error, in mistaking a certain form of household retail consumption for all household retail consumption and even worse for the overall economic situation.
this is irrelevant by itself. All that counts for the idea of the OP is a significant change in the overall economic activity.
I know of a number of people who regularly go into debt for xmas - how would that spending shift if there was not a major gift holiday, and how much of it would not be spent at all? Is xmas a major driver of consumer debt, or does xmas just affect the timing? A lot of home entertainment and other big purchases happen at xmas, I imagine that TV purchases would mostly just shift, but what about all the money that is spent on little nick-knack gifts bought because of social pressure, and decorations that are often just thrown away?
How much is the xmas buying surge anyway? I imagine that grocery stores don’t see much of a bump, while jewelry and TV sales probably see a huge upswing. Does anyone know what percentage of the economy is xmas specific spending?
I wonder how much of the gift buying is about the shopper, and not the giftee? Is xmas just used an as excuse by some people to go on a shopping binge? I see a lot of couples who competitively spend - xmas can give one partner an excuse to spend money in a way that they would not be able to at other times of year.
Another question: Are big family oriented xmas purchases used to deflect expectations of individual gifts, i.e.: “nobody got bikes this year because we got the new big screen TV”. So, in this made up example, it looks like the family spent a bunch on xmas, when they really spent a bunch on entertainment, that they would have spent anyway just before the super bowl.
In summary, what does xmas do to people with credit card problems or other spending problems? Is it just an easy excuse to spend, or is it a major driver of the problem?
Grocery stores definitely get a bump. It starts for Thanksgiving and lasts until Christmas.
Ok people, I’m sure we can cook up a new holiday, something with gifts, cards, assorted gougeables. We can call it something like, um, “Love Day”, but not so lame.
On a more serious note, aren’t there lot of businesses that basically run at a loss throughout the year and rely upon the seasonal period to make their profits?
Its one thing to say that the money will just be spent elsewhere, and it will, but what effect losing all those industries and the subsequent job losses and decreased spending power against the various other industries all making just a little more money?
And is this any different to your military spending? So many vested interests in military spending, why worry about cutting spending in that area when the money is just going to be spent anyway?
In the US I dont think it would be so big since we have many other holidays. Look how big Super Bowl sunday has become.
Now in the Phillipines Christmas is THE big holiday and it would be a major disruption.