It may be time to put an end to Black Friday

The website “Business Insurance Quotes” offered a column in its Monday newsletter entitled “10 Reasons Black Friday is awful and needs to go away.”

I have to say I agree with that point of view, having seen idiots make even bigger fools of themselves as they scrum into stores, elbowing one another, pushing one another and trying to pretend to be having a good time.

Here are six of the the reasons why Business Insurance believes there should be a Black Friday blackout:

(1) It’s dangerous. A few years ago, a Walmart worker was trampled to death. Dozens of people are injured, store employees and customers alike.

(2) Shopping rage isn’t worth it. Like road rage, shopping rage turns normally ordinary and polite people into dangerous maniacs as they scramble to get hold of some special thing they think will make a good gift. Some people even are killed when shopping-raged customers go at it.

(3) Retail workers lose their Thanksgiving. Stores are opening before Friday, some as early as 10 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day.

(4) The best brands aren’t usually on sale. “Some of the best deals you’ll find during Black Friday are on electronics, like TVs and laptops. The only problem, they typically aren’t brands you would consider buying at any other time of the year. The prices are cheap, but the products often are, too. Kitchen appliances on sale are often more poorly made than the full-price versions and are items you won’t use frequently, like donut makers and low-grade blenders.”

(5) Retailers have purposefully low inventories on the Black Friday bargains. They know customers, seeing Black Friday items already gone, tend to buy more expensive goods. “The problem with these impulse buys is that you don’t always know if they’re actually good deals or not. You haven’t compared prices, read reviews, or thought about whether you really want the item.”

(6) It’s making us crazy rather than thankful. There’s not much about Black Friday for which to be thankful. “If we could just end Black Friday now, that would give us all something else to be thankful for.”

Amen to that.

And by the way, Small Business Saturday is much more satisfying, and much better for the communities in which we live, because the money from small businesses pretty much stays at home.