Kmart stores, owned by Sears, will be open through 10 p.m. Christmas Eve. Target Corp. lengthened its hours in late November, opening from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. On Dec. 24, Target will be open for 11 hours until 6 p.m. Wal-Mart, which operates many of its supercenters 24 hours a day, will close at 6 p.m. Dec. 24 and reopen at 6 a.m. Dec. 26.
If you had any doubt that the real religion in this country is shopping, those hours should allay it.
What about the employees who have to work those shifts? Are they allowed any time for their families?
This is going too far.
Posted by Linkmeister at December 23, 2007 03:07 PM | TrackBackIf you haven't yet read Robert Reich's Supercapitalism, you should start now. I'm about half way through and have finished his explanation of how, in the last 40 years, the balance of power in the world (not just this country) has shifted from citizens (you, me, the people who work in Wal-Mart) to investors and consumers. The world is now GREAT for investors and consumers; for citizens, not so much.
So yes, one of the two real religions in this country is shopping (the other one is getting a ridiculously high return on investment, except when the mortgage holder defaults).
I'm about to start the part where he discusses what he thinks we ought to do; but everyone should read his analysis of how we got where we are. We have done this to ourselves.
Posted by: hedera at December 24, 2007 10:23 AMI was actually shocked that some stores here (like Don Quijote, Safeway, and Longs) are actually open on the day itself. So much for Christmas being a holiday from creeping commercialism, eh? I hope those workers got double pay.
Posted by: Keith at December 26, 2007 11:56 AMKeith, I expect they did. When I was on Kwajalein as a single guy, I'd volunteer to work holidays on the switchboard so the married women who usually did those jobs could be with their families. It was double time-and-a-half wages for me.
Hedera, sounds like a good book. I'm reading "The Shock Doctrine," which is guaranteed to infuriate you if you take Naomi Klein's premise as gospel.
Posted by: Linkmeister at December 26, 2007 12:33 PM