Stuff Never Sleeps - The End

Humans made this: The "Gum Wall" by Pikes Place Market, Seattle, WA. Ew.

Last year I wrote about the deadweight loss of Christmas, which is a term economists use to tell us we're throwing good money after bad. 

Joel Waldfogel is an economist who argues in his book Scroogenomics that purchasing gifts for other people is a "terrible way to allocate resources." He estimates worldwide that approximately $25 billion a year is misallocated in holiday spending. 

Everyone reading this knows what he's talking about. The candle you got last year that you put in the office Secret Santa this year, the bottle of port (ick) you got from your boss that you haven't touched, the gift you spent ten hours shopping for, so your friend could look genuinely disappointed when they opened it. 

We don't need economists to tell us we're throwing good money out the window. Every year we do it anyway. 

Because, it wouldn't be Christmas, apparently, without a deadweight loss.

Recently, I received an email from Neil Heatherington, the Executive Director of The Daily Bread Food Bank, in which he said that there were 2.5 million "client visits" to Toronto food banks over the past year.

Another factoid in circulation is that one in ten people inToronto have used a food bank at least once in the past year.

Last fun fact: food bank use is up 63% this year, compared to the year before.

All of which is to say, this year I'm cutting my deadweight losses. Most of the money I would have spent on gifts has been donated to a food bank.

And my gift to most of the people on my list is one less piece of stuff they don't need. 

Happy Holidays!

Karen

Humans also made this: the Cowardly
Lion costume from the Wizard of Oz.
You can find it as the Museum of 
Popular Culture, Seattle, WA.
This is the real thing and it is made out
of real lion pelts. Ew.