Treasure What America Still Offers by Terry Savage on Creators.com

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Treasure What America Still Offers

Like most Americans, you probably spent Thanksgiving weekend eating turkey once or twice and then sitting stuffed on the couch watching interminable football games or dozing off to be roused only when a touchdown was scored. You may have ventured out to do some holiday shopping, getting caught in the crush of people seeking great deals on stuff they may or may not need.

Hey, this is not a story with a moral. If that's how you spent a few days, it was relaxing and fun. If you were the cook (and dishwasher), it was pleasantly exhausting. And if you have a job with a retailer, you were certainly too busy to think about global issues.

And that brings up a question: What would happen to the world's economic and political woes and wars if we just didn't think about them? It's not an idle question.

Thanksgiving is an American holiday. But Canadians have their Thanksgiving holiday in October, so they were busy building a pipeline to the West Coast, so they can export the oil that America doesn't want badly enough to allow them to build a pipeline to our country. In the Middle East, militants killed dozens in Yemen, NATO attacked Pakistan killing 24 soldiers, and the Arab League voted to sanction Syria.

The Occupy Wall Street movement moved to London, where protestors set up a tent city in the heart of the financial district. Germany and France are still trying to fix the euro, and European banks are still scrambling to borrow money in a bond market that is demanding high interest rates as a huge risk premium.

All while we were dozing on the couch.

Even at home as the campaign for the Republican nomination draws closer to the Iowa primary, the networks were reduced to rehashing the foreign affairs debate from earlier last week. Newt Gingrich remained a strong contender, and no one could stoke a fire on the immigration issue. Presumably the candidates and their supporters were also dozing in front of the TV.

The only economic issue that could rally interest was the extent of the deals being offered on Black Friday, which started on Thursday night.

ShopperTrak predicted a more than 6 percent increase in sales — based on foot traffic in the stores. But it remains to be seen if those sales will be profitable ones for retailers or just loss leaders that put them in the red for the season.

For many consumers, the mania of the shopping season will end in the depression of January as the bills come due. But this is the season for thinking of the here and now.

This is the fifth holiday season in which we've faced economic challenges and uncertainty about our financial future. In 2007, we had just seen the market take a sharp drop from its August peak. In 2008, the holiday season began just after the September collapse of Lehman. In 2009 (after the market made its lows around 6700 in March), we were swept into the holidays with a report that the recession had ended in July — something no one believed. And last year, the holidays came in the midst of ever-rising unemployment numbers.

This year, we know we're mired in slow growth, a stagnant housing market, a leaden job market and a scary stock market. Not to mention an imminent financial collapse in Europe.

But we're still going shopping. In fact, every year at this time, people hit the malls to spend billions of dollars in just a few weeks. This year, it's estimated that we will find more than $11 billion to spend. Gosh, compared to the problems of the rest of the world, things aren't so bad in America.

We still go shopping. We still have a choice of political candidates. We still believe in our system, sort of. And we still have football — at least for a few more weeks. No wonder the U.S. dollar is so strong. A lot of people around the world want what we have. We should treasure that — even if we aren't thinking about the world's problems. And that's the Savage Truth.

Terry Savage is a registered investment adviser and is on the board of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. She appears weekly on WMAQ-Channel 5's 4:30 p.m. newscast, and can be reached at www.terrysavage.com. She is the author of the new book, "The New Savage Number: How Much Money Do You Really Need to Retire?" To find out more about Terry Savage and read her past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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