Tom Keane

Shopping all the way (ha! ha! ha!)

TODAY IS Holiday Eve, and you know what that means: Just a few hours until Holiday itself!

Maybe tonight you’ll wander around the neighborhood singing Holiday carols, then you’ll put the kids to bed so Holiday Claus (“Santa’’ being too close to “Saint’’ for comfort) can take his time strewing all sorts of gifts around the Holiday Tree.

And then tomorrow, as you sit around in the aftermath of the unwrapping, trying to read indecipherable instructions and wondering why even stuffed toys now require AAA batteries, take a moment to pause and reflect on the true meaning of Holiday itself: It’s our best chance yet of knocking down this recession. And you, the American consumer, deserve much of the credit.

Yes, indeed, it’s been a bang-up shopping season. It kicked off just over four weeks ago with an abbreviated Thanksgiving (“Thanks for the turkey, folks - time to go to the mall!’’) and has been running pell-mell since. In October, the National Retailers Association had predicted Holiday retail sales would climb by 2.8 percent over 2010. Now it says, with relish, that they’ll grow by 3.8 percent. Meanwhile, online shopping is seeing unprecedented gains; research firm ComScore says sales are running 15 percent ahead of last year. Even better, consumers are doing all of this shopping despite fewer big discounts being available this year. That’s right: More of you are paying full price and, while that may not be so great for your pocketbooks, it’s certainly fattening up the profits of everyone from Macy’s to Amazon.

All the numbers aren’t yet in, of course. We still have the mad rush of today and then the Monday after Holiday, when we all flock back to the stores to return the dumb things people gave us. But so far the data look good.

The entire Thanksgiving to Holiday shopping frenzy is, of course, crazy. The origins of Holiday may be lost in time (something to do with a birth, I think) but buying stuff was probably not part of it. The focus on gift-giving itself is irrational. In theory, trading gifts back and forth gives you less satisfaction than simply spending money on yourself - after all, you know your own needs better than do others. And some of the purchases we make are downright bizarre, especially gift cards, which altogether abandon the pretense of buying for others, instead handing over to them the burden of picking their own gift. (Why we don’t just give cash instead is beyond me. A $50 gift card is apparently OK, but for some reason we think cash is crass.)

Still, as foolish as shopping season may be, we all should be happy it occurs. Consumer spending is two-thirds of the US economy. When consumers become more free-handed with their dollars, we end up with what economists call a virtuous circle. Your dollars spent at a store mean the retailer can hire a clerk, who in turn can spend money at a store, and so on. Things accelerate upwards until we are all awash in jobs and money. But when disaster strikes, virtue turns vicious. That’s what happened after the 2008 crash, when we all retrenched.

No more.

Remember in the summer, when economists were predicting a double-dip recession? That fear is dissipating, and it’s because of us - consumers. Granted, these are trying times: gyrating stock markets, a possible collapse of the euro zone, gridlocked politicians, high unemployment, falling average incomes, natural disasters, and global upheavals from the Middle East to North Korea. But despite it all, Americans seem to have returned to the basic optimism that has for the most part characterized this country. (The Conference Board, for example, reports that consumer confidence jumped an impressive 15.1 points in November, even as corporate CEOs are turning pessimistic. ) As silly as it may sound, going shopping is ultimately a sign of faith. Not “faith’’ as in the religion-related events rumored to have given rise to Holiday, but rather faith in the nation as a whole to persevere and thrive. In 2012, that faith - seen now in the crowded parking lots of area malls - may translate into reality.

Holy Christmas! Wouldn’t that be great?

Originally published in the Boston Globe on December 24, 2011.

Occupy Boston: So, what was the point?

THE NEIGHBORS were complaining, it was getting late, and even those at the party were looking at their watches, thinking it really had gone on longer than they expected and wondering how they could best make their excuses and leave.

And then along came Boston Mayor Tom Menino telling them it was time to go and so dutifully - and probably relieved that he gave them an out - most did. The big, communal tents have been packed up. As I write this, only about 35 tents remain and even those are being disassembled. City sanitation workers are loading up the trash. A few protesters will doubtless resist, eager to get arrested (as those from the ‘60s have found, it’s a great story to tell the grandchildren), but for all intents and purposes, Occupy Boston is over.

Thursday’s decision by Judge Frances McIntyre allowing the city to evict was plainly correct. There’s no question that what the Occupiers were engaged in was, in fact, speech. Moreover, the methods of that speech - the encampment as well as the communal lifestyle of the protesters - were expressive, making them exactly the kind of stuff the First Amendment was designed to protect. (The fact that the living conditions ultimately seemed more akin to “The Lord of the Flies’’ didn’t make the speech less worthy of protection.)

On the other hand, Dewey Square is a city park. The Occupation precluded anyone else from using that space - making it, in effect, the privatization of a public space. At some point the interests of everyone else hold sway and, after more than two months, that time had come. Add to that worries about the city’s potential liability (if there was a fire and folks died, would the city be liable for not enforcing building and sanitation codes?) and the right of Boston to uphold its rules about no overnight sleeping in city parks seemed clear. Indeed, Menino deserves a lot of credit for letting things go on as long as they did - although an alternative view is that, by waiting and watching mayors in other cities make their own mistakes, he learned how to do it right.

But now that it’s over, the question to be debated is, what did it accomplish? This was, in truth, far from a mass movement. It’s likely more people showed up outside shopping malls on Thanksgiving than ever stayed in Dewey Square. And while one might admire the fortitude of the Occupiers for their long-term commitment, it was, for many, better than paying for rent and meals.

The Occupiers, and many in the media, will argue that at a minimum they provoked discussion about the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and the decline of the middle class. I’m not sure that’s correct. The debate was already under way. Democrats have been harping on tax cuts for the wealthy over the last couple of years. Occupy was more a consequence of that discussion than its provocateur.

But whether one gives the Occupiers credit for the conversation or not, it’s hard to see how they’ve played any role in figuring out a solution. The principal impact of the Occupiers’ leaderless, agenda-free movement was pretty much to persuade everyone else that leaderless, agenda-free movements don’t work. The Tea Party activists, with whom the Occupiers are often compared, turned their anger into political action. But much of the rhetoric from the Occupiers specifically rejected participation in voting and politics, leaving one puzzled as to how anything meaningful was to be accomplished.

Meanwhile, there are many out there who have been trying constructively to address the underlying concerns that gave rise to the Occupy movement. One-time Senate candidate Alan Khazei, for instance, has put together an organization, Opportunity Nation (www.opportunitynation.org), that brings together folks from all over the political spectrum (including left-wing think tanks, major corporations, and the religious right) to create a plan for how the United States can restore the once-proud notion of the American dream.

Opportunity Nation’s efforts have been largely drowned out by the media focus on the protesters, but Khazei and others like him will likely do far more to advance the Occupiers’ cause than did their tents.

Originally published in the Boston Globe on December 10, 2011.