The holidays have become a time for taking on debt in order to honor the “time-honored” tradition of giving gifts at the holidays. CNBC reported in November that many American still have credit card debt from last Christmas. However, according to this article in The Atlantic, the tradition of gift giving at the holidays started after our country was founded and it was originally focused in giving gifts to children only. Obviously, that changed over time and we now give gifts to not only our children, but our families, friends and often co-workers. This change has been driven largely by retail who want to encourage us to spend more money to grow their profits and this is a great year for them as sales are up from last year.
While it is good for retail, I’m not convinced that the growth of this annual spending frenzy is helpful to the rest of society. The problem that I see with the proliferation of gift giving is twofold. Read More »