Finance Signals from the Vault
Alright, Black Friday's here. Again. And I'm supposed to be excited about...what, exactly? The same "deals" that retailers have been jacking up prices on for the last six months just so they can slash 'em and call it a sale? Give me a break.
Black Friday: Savings or Just Retailers' Trash Day?
The Illusion of Savings
Deloitte says the average consumer is gonna drop $622 between today and December 1st. That's down 4% from last year. Progress? Maybe. Or maybe people are finally waking up to the fact that Black Friday is less about saving money and more about retailers clearing out last year's garbage.
And let's talk about this "online sales outpaced brick-and-mortar" nonsense for the past six years. Offcourse, they have. Who wants to fight crowds of mouth-breathers at Walmart at 4 a.m. when you can click a button from your couch? But are you *really* getting a better deal online? Or are you just getting targeted ads for stuff you don't need for the next three months?
Shoppers are skeptical they're getting the best deals? No freakin' kidding. It's like believing politicians are telling the truth. The level of naivete required is astounding. And Gen Z leading the charge? Figures. They grew up with influencers selling them everything from teeth whitening kits to crypto scams.
New Glasses, Same Old Distraction: Tech's Shiny Toys
Tech's Shiny Distractions
Meanwhile, Alibaba's rolling out AI-powered smart glasses. The Quark AI Glasses. Because what we *really* need is another screen glued to our faces. Competing with Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses, huh? It's a race to the bottom, folks. A race to see who can distract us the most from the fact that the world is burning.
And Alphabet? Oh, they're doing just fine. Shares up nearly 70% this year. Best performer in megacap tech. They dropped some new TPUs called Ironwood and everyone's drooling over Gemini 3, their latest AI model. All while the stock market gets randomly halted due to a "cooling issue" at the CME. A "cooling issue"? Is that what we're calling it now? Sounds like some B.S. excuse to me. Are they trying to pull a fast one on us? I wouldn't put it past 'em.
Then you've got Apple, poised to ship more smartphones than Samsung for the first time in 14 years. A monumental shift, but does it actually *matter* to anyone outside of the C-suite? I doubt it. It's just another way for corporations to pat themselves on the back while the rest of us struggle to pay rent.
K-Beauty: Importing Insecurities, One Product at a Time
The K-Beauty Invasion
And because we clearly don't have enough ways to waste our money, U.S. sales of "K-beauty" are surging. 37% increase this year. Ulta, Sephora, Walmart, Costco...they're all jumping on the bandwagon. Olive Young, a South Korean beauty retailer, is opening its first U.S. store in Los Angeles next year. Because apparently, American beauty standards aren't good enough anymore. We need to import our insecurities from overseas. Fantastic.
But hey, at least the stock market rebounded during the holiday-shortened week. The Dow and S&P 500 are only *poised* to snap six-month winning streaks. The Nasdaq Composite is *on track* to see its first negative month in eight. So, everything's fine. Right? CME disruption, Black Friday, the K-beauty boom and more in Morning Squawk - CNBC
This Is All Just One Big, Expensive Joke
Seriously, what are we even doing here? We're chasing fleeting discounts on products we don't need, fueled by corporate hype and the desperate need to feel like we're getting a "good deal." Meanwhile, the planet's melting, AI is taking over, and everyone's glued to their screens. Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky, but I think I'll pass on the Black Friday madness this year. I'd rather spend my money on something that actually makes me happy—like a bottle of whiskey and a good book.
