It took this to bring me out of retirement...

Ok, it has been a few months since my last blog and I probably lost any of the interest I ever had. But I have been shocked into functionality once again.

The subtitle of this entry is "How the grinches stole Christmas".

Now to begin I am not a fan of losing site of what is important at Christmas. But that discussion I sum up in reference to the second chapter of the gospel Luke.

Now I want to discuss the advanced phemomina found in the current generation. The internet, namely e-Bay, has changed the corporate process of Christmas forever (or at least for the here-and-now).

Back in the good ole days, parents waited outside of Sears and trampled each other to get a Cabbage Patch doll for their overspoiled child and that child would be the happiest kid on the block for the next few weeks.

Right now I am counting about 860 PlayStation 3's on sale at eBay ranging from $995 - $20,000. The retail price for the item is currently $599. Quite an incredible markup, eh? I am having a hard time finding out how many units were shipped to the US but the numbers range from 30,000 - 400,000. So it would seem that many of the units sold from stores may have been brought straight home and found themselves wrapped under the Christmas tree, or perhaps they are tucked away in the back of closet to be pulled out as the "big gift".

Anyway, what is crazy is the fact that with tools like eBay, Macy's ain't the only game in town for making money at Christmas time. Now the general public can get in on the action by absorbing the market and taking supply and demand to a tyranical level. That is quite an odd behavior from the same people that complain about the outrageous rise in gas prices. (That makes me actually think that we are better off with the taxes we incur from the government rather than what we would be taxed if we really left it up to "We the people".)

Now 800 kids will not get the toy they were hoping for because someone that didn't want it bought it first and offers it at a premium beyond the orginal price which was bad enough. I am sure that the number of units sold on eBay will climb as the day draws near, and the price will follow suit.

We have gone from commercializing Christmas to re-commercializing Christmas. And at the heart you will find eBay supporting "grinch mentality".

Well, I am off to sleep and I expect to find many people to skipping out on church services tomorrow morning so they can conrer the market on the Nintendo wii which will release for $240, but probably only go for a mere $800 - $10,000 on eBay.