I also pretty much keep only two or three pairs of jeans on hand at any given time. (God allowed man to invent the washing machine for a reason I’m told) This being the case I had waiting a good while to get some new jeans from Old Navy during their holiday “Black Friday” sale. After checking out the paper, I discovered that they were also having a Thanksgiving Day sale where you could get an additional $10 off a purchase of $50 or more. As I was planning on getting two pair of jeans and two light sweaters for cool evenings I found that this was something that appealed to me.

At the time, I was certain that I would be able to skip right over all the Black Friday madness by going Thanksgiving Day when everyone was gathered around the dinner table or lounging in a food coma afterward. No such luck!

Upon arrival, I noticed that the line in the store looked a bit long, but whatever, right? I grabbed the four items I wanted and proceeded to search for the end of the line. Soon I discovered that the line stretched from the cashier’s register all the way to the back of the store and proceeded to loop back on itself until it almost reached all the way back to the front of the store!

I watched for about 5 minutes and seeing that the line moved not at all, I put an estimate on the time it would take to get to the register somewhere between 2 and 3 hours. It was at that point that I did some quick mental calculation. I’ve honed this skill over time while looking through many vacant CA foreclosures and trying to estimate the time and cost of the repairs that would be required to bring them into the proper condition necessary for the house to achieve a quick sale. My mental calculator quickly told me that if I was to stand in this line for 2 hours (probably would end up being more) and I only valued my time at $20 p/hour (that would be quite a bit lower than the actual figure I attach to my time these days) then I would be “spending” $40 of time in order to achieve $10 in cash savings. The obvious result is that I would suffer and ridiculous and unacceptable $30 loss. I dropped my items on the closest rack and thought that maybe it would be best to come back promptly at 3 am when the Friday “Door Buster” sales event was launched.

So after staying up all night like an idiot I jumped back into the car at 2:30am and went back to Old Navy. What I saw was beyond my comprehension. The line (which had still been prevented from entering the store at the time I arrived) stretched all the way down the front of the outdoor shopping mall until it ended soundly in front of the entrance of the adjacent Target discount department store…which was between 1/5 and 1/4 of a mile away!

What does all this have to do with CA Foreclosures?

Well as I stood there looking at this mania, I thought that maybe my preconceived notions on the future economic outlook of the nation were at fault. I recently read the piece put up by John Rossi concerning the case for a coming Double Dip Recession which seemed to ring true in my mind and was in line with much of what I had posted here. On the other hand, the crowds I saw today put that premise in question.

After all, John’s prediction is based on the fact that this holiday shopping season will fail to produce the results needed to continue fueling economy that is trying to overcome gravity and blast out of this recession in spite of mounting unemployment, swelling numbers of CA foreclosures, and a host of other factors keeping the recovery down. The resulting trickle down effect will be seen in a continued loss of consumer confidence, additional foreclosures flooding the market, additional corporate and personal bankruptcies, and a whole host of other financial and economic demons coming out of the woodwork to beset the nations with woe.

Yet what I saw before my eyes was the exact opposite. So how strong is that argument about the coming economic collapse due to the crash of the Christmas buying season? Well, further examination will probably prove John right. After all, the items in these sales are no doubt being promoted at prices that are resulting in a loss for the company. The hope is that once you are in the store you’ll buy some things that are NOT on sale or items that retain a high enough profit margin that the end result will be that the company will earn back all the “losses” they incurred in selling the discounted items at inexplicably low prices and then some.

Time will soon tell, but what we might see here is that anything that is NOT included in one of these corporate seppuku style sales promotions does not get a second look by the consumer. With epic discount shopping events being launched earlier than ever this year, many people may be done with the majority of their shopping come Monday. That doesn’t leave much hope of generating a profit when the vast majority of all you sold was done so at a loss…and that’s just what will happen if these super-sale items are all that ends up being consistently bought. There simply will be no profits, only losses for these stores to tally up come December 31st!

I’ll also add my voice to the minority that is telling everyone to do nothing financially rashly over the next six months because the so-called “recovery” is probably just the kickoff to what will eventually come to be known as “America’s Lost Decade”. This will be remembered as a time when CA foreclosures drive home prices down to 15 year lows, the state was flooded unemployment, and state’s government was brought to it’s knees due to a lack of funds. Keep your guard up California!

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