How Occupy Effects Our Spending

Some of the biggest news of the week concerns the upcoming holiday spending season, when shoppers will swarm online and brick and mortar stores for great deals on electronics, camping equipment, pendants, and other attractive gifts.  The US and European economies have been foremost in the minds of forecasters who are trying to determine whether we are entering a second recession, or emerging further from the one we already were in. This is a tricky time to make such speculations, but people in retail industries need some guidance as to what can be expected, and if past years are any indication, spending could be up this year despite the dwindling economic conditions and personal savings and spending plans that have not been in place for people struggling to make ends meet, often during extended periods of unemployment.

The Occupy movement continues to gain steam in places around the world as protesters come out raging against everything from college loans to the very existence of corporate America.  Overnight, the authorities in both Oakland and Atlanta were forced to take action to control the protesters in those places.  Oakland police met the protesters with extreme force, shooting beanbag rounds and flash canisters into the crowds and launching tear gas grenades at them. Atlanta’s police were more peaceful;  they only arrested all fifty of the protesters occupying a park in downtown Atlanta, handcuffing them and taking them to the jail.  Police in both areas have come under fire from critics and watchdogs who point out that taking away any citizens’ right to peaceful protest was a violation of civil rights, and that if the same thing had taken place in China or Russia, human rights groups from around the world – led by America – would berate them so severely they would have no choice but to cease their oppression of the people.