Black Friday, Cheap Chinese goods and the future of America

Nov 30

I am ashamed to admit that I participated in this past week’s Black Friday ritual, not because I wanted to but because my children asked me to.  I think this possibly makes me a bad parent except that we discussed what we learned from the experience and perhaps that will change their perspectives for the future. We are a consumer driven society.  Last night...

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Say Yes to the Dress

Aug 29

Today I went shopping for the first time for a homecoming dress with my 14 year old daughter, Mary Mac. Yes, my baby has a date to a homecoming dance. What a day! Mary Mac loves to shop. She could spend hours in a mall just trying on clothes. It takes her a long time to make up her mind. I, on the other hand, don’t shop for more than an hour at a time, usually...

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Resisting IKEA, aka, Thinking about a New Economy

Aug 29

met my daughter, Lindsay, at IKEA today to get her the kitchen table she wanted for her birthday. This was my first trip to the massive retail store. IKEA is a Swedish based company. This strikes me as really being out of whack since the Swedish are not mass consumers. I think I wrote about the Swedish concept of “lagom” meaning “enough” or...

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Magdalena Market – Lima open market shopping

Oct 17

   Today we visited the Magdalena Market in Peru. This a typical Peruvian outdoor market where the locals go to get all of their goods. There are supermarkets in the wealthy areas but they are very expensive. In these markets it is important to know your source. You can see from all the meat and fish hanging and lying around in the open that this could present...

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