National Buy Nothing Day

Buy Nothing Day was created to protest consumerism. Though some think this is a marvelous idea of giving the finger to big companies, many others don’t see the point in a day that will not be effective because of the greed of Americans for luxurious products and the counteraction of the companies that will cause consumers to buy anyway. Americans are known for desiring items that are not necessities. This is shown on Black Friday.
Almost all Americans wait outside major store, such as Wal-Mart,Target, K-Mart, for hours just to have a new laptop or flat screen tv for thirty percent the normal price. Another example are products at the cashier. When most people go into a store, they have their mind preset on a product or products they are going to buy. But, usually their product list ends up unnecessarily enlarging because they see some candy they want, or even their child wants. Who wants to say no to children? Those type of products are strategically placed there for the consumption of Americans that do not need.
A Buy Nothing Day would not be so effective since Americans are willing to spend their money on just about anything they want. Buy Nothing Day would also be ineffective because of the counteraction that the companies would take to help themselves economically. If companies know about Buy Nothing Day and are against it, they are going to try to get consumers to buy their goods. The law of demand ,relating to Economics, shows that as demand lowers, prices will as well. So companies will lower their prices to get more consumers buy their products.

Since Americans are greedy, they’d want the products they have at a lower price and the companies are not losing because they were originally not going to receive any profit anyway if all consumers participated in Buy Nothing Day. Buy Nothing Day is a nice thought. The attempt at unifying consumers against companies is inspiring. But, realistically, it wouldn’t happen since Americans love buying things and companies are going to lower prices. With those to combination, there might actually be more sales that occur on Buy Nothing. Buy Nothing Day will be truly ineffective if it ends up like a Black Friday.