Stopping To Think

As you know from my previous post I am running a sale this weekend. Many people in the arts business are. I was in the Etsy forums last night and there was much discussion about how much people are selling by running these sales. The answer was not much, followed by the perfunctory comment that the economy is bad. They keep saying on the news that the economy is bad and affecting sales this year in the major department stores. But I started really thinking about this. They say every year on the news that sales are down from the previous year. But yet a lot of companies are thriving. Besides, when has the news ever been that reliable of a source for the truth? Sure some stores have gone out of business but in my opinion it was because you could always get the same stuff from some of their competitors for less, like Linen's & Things for instance. They never really sold anything that spectacular and their prices were always above other stores. I think they would have gone out of business anyway.

Our gas has dropped by more than a $1.00 per gallon. I don't know a single person that has been laid off or taken a pay cut. I know there are people who have, I just don't know any of them. But people get laid off and take pay cuts all the time, even when the economy is good. Groceries are coming down from over inflated prices. I haven't seen any significant increases in my bills.

So all this makes me wonder...is the economy really that bad? Or is it a simple case of two things...prices got inflated very quickly because of gas hikes but they are coming back down to normal now. Secondly...maybe people think the economy is bad because everyone keeps parroting what everyone else is saying about the economy being bad and we are all buying into that perception?

I was saying it too for a while, but really nothing in my life has been that greatly affected. There is nothing wrong with saving for a rainy day, but if we all stop buying things the economy really will crumble.

Food for thought...