December is the month when people spend the most money, especially in the West. Of course this is due to Christmas and the New Year festivities, where it is common to have restaurants charge ridiculous prices for New Year’s Eve dinners. A restaurateur in Berlin once admitted making more money on New Year’s Eve than on any other night of the year.
We are continually influenced in our purchasing decisions by the media and this time of the year is no different. Yummy family feasts now feature regularly on our TVs, along with suggestions that Christmas is incomplete without kilos of foie gras, trendy toys, expensive scents, etc. The power of influence was demonstrated recently by a discount shoe shop ini a funny prank to promote shoes by a fake designer called “Bruno Palessi”. A large group of popular social media “influencers” were fooled into buying US$20 shoes for up to US$640 while taking selfies of themselves. I find it both funny and curious that people with such poor judgment actually have the power to “influence” their followers.