The GOOD Sheet

What is GOOD?

"GOOD is a collaboration of individuals, businesses, and nonprofits pushing the world forward. It's a weekly series breaking down an important issue to help make sense of the world around us. Exclusively available at Starbucks." 

I found this paper at Starbucks. Issue #11 is on the Holiday Economy. 

Did you know:

• 30-35 million Christmas trees are sold in the US every year
• Americans spent $9.3 billion in jewelry-store sales during Nov and Dec in 2007
• The US Postal Service will deliver 20 billion cards, letters, and packages between Thanksgiving and Christmas
• Americans bought $700 million worth of candles during the 2007 holiday season (that's 350 million pounds of wax)
• In 2006, Americans drank 131 million pounds of eggnog during the holiday season (Speaking of eggnog, have you tried Starbucks Eggnog Chai Latte?)

And, finally, in November and December of 2007, American consumers accumulated an estimated $12.8 billion in new debt! And it's worth pointing out that one third of these consumers were still paying off debt from the 2006 holiday season.

All of these interesting facts and more were in issue #11 of GOOD.

Let me just add a little bit of hope to the American consumer . We seem to be learning from our current tough-love economic lesson. The Sunday New York Times reported this weekend that, "For the first time on record, the total indeptedness of American consumers declined in the third quarter."

Are we beginning to learn to live within our means?