Black Friday shopping turns ugly

Each year at this time we are provided a new testimonial to excess, otherwise known as Black Friday shopping. The Wilson Daily Times chronicled people who got in line shortly after midnight for predawn store openings. These people wanted to be sure to be first to get the limited-quantity early-bird specials. The Associated Press reported that a Wal-Mart employee in New York was trampled to death by overly eager shoppers. What has happened to sane judgment?

While the world suffers through its deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression, shoppers on Friday were lining up to buy discounted flat-screen TVs at around $1,000 a pop, computers for several hundred dollars and navigation units in the hundreds of dollars. These same shoppers were complaining about the economy and about not having as much to spend this year.

A couple of months ago, I wrote about the coming New Frugality, a potential return to the tight-fisted regimen our parents and grandparents knew in the Great Depression. I guess it hasn't arrived yet.