The rest of this pathetic week will be based on Black Friday. So in advance of all the hype that will be coming about the importance of the traditional day after Thanksgiving shopping excitement - I thought I’d say that I think it’s all bullshit. How can I say that when I haven’t yet heard about the people camping out early in the morning on sidewalks or creating a stampede and knocking down other shopoholics to be first into the mall? It’s easy. Every year we see video of the eager shoppers, we hear from retail analysts who have witnessed the fiasco, we get preliminary data from stores …and every year I feel the same so I expect that this year will be no different. Good or bad - I just think it’s stupid to make any assessment about the American consumer based upon one day. I don’t care if the weather was good or bad. I don’t care if there are really good deals at Wal-Mart. Do you need to see a big buying binge on Friday to convince you that the American consumer is healthy? I’ll say it one more time - many sick-in-the-head people love to go on shopping sprees. Is that evidence that they are healthy? Consider the credit card debt or the rising unemployment concerns or the housing crisis. Those things don’t get better or worse with one day of shopping. A week ago, we had a Wal-Mart rally based upon pretty pathetic US same store data. On that one day, analysts and media hypesters were largely proclaiming the health of the “resilient” American consumer. Since then we’ve heard from JCP, TGT and a bunch of others saying things are not so hot. On Friday, I expect we’ll see the hypesters doing their best to say how great the retail activity is going. Last year they said it was great….how did that turn out? Do you think that the American consumer has done well since then? To be fair, if Black Friday is a disappointment, it will mean very little to me and will not make me more negative. I base my opinion on the health of the consumer on many more factors than one day of anecdotal evidence. So when you are watching the coverage on Friday and early next week, please try to keep your perspective. Right now - do you think the consumer is healthy and optimistic? Are you feeling like waking up early to get that bargain or the limited supplies of hot items?