Americans are buying less useless stuff for Christmas

This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a pointless discretionary item of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. Sign up here. ‘Tis the season to buy things [Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a pointless discretionary item of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - ‘Tis the season to [buy things](. - The BOJ fired a [bazooka](. - [Globalization]( is on the decline. - The [shipping revolution]( has arrived. Nobody Eats the Fruitcake I can’t believe I’m about to admit this, but last December I willingly paid $26.36 for this t-shirt featuring various iterations of [Pete Davidson](’s face: Yes, I have regrets. Source: Etsy It was a gift for my sister. I mainly bought it as a joke, but she hasn’t worn it at all. So the joke is on me, I guess. When Christmas rolls around, most Americans observe the unfortunate tradition of buying boatloads of pointless discretionary items for their loved ones. Year in and year out, we fill our carts with the most absurd gifts, from [customized potato faces]( to calendars featuring “[the world’s greatest mullets](.” Luckily, Tyler Cowen writes, the deluge of [Baby Yoda merch](, [novelty finger puppets]( and [USB milk frothers]( may be subsiding as Americans become stingier with each season. In 1999, the typical American shelled out $1,300 on holiday gifts. In 2020, that amount dropped to $800. Charitable giving is still strong, so it’s probably not that we’re becoming less generous. A likelier theory is that most people already have all the stuff they could possibly need. Your friend only needs one set of noise-cancelling headphones, one air fryer and one Dyson Airwrap. So you end up just buying them a basket of gold-wrapped pears and some fruitcake because everyone’s gotta eat at some point, right? Sustenance, people. Of course, American spending habits remain somewhat of a mystery three years into the global pandemic. On the one hand, the savings rate is lower than it was when Flo Rida did that song about [apple bottom jeans](: But at the same time, our pandemic cash mountain has grown by more than $800 billion: Karl Smith suggests this is probably because we’ve been [cashing out of stocks]( and [bonds]( to stay ahead of a market meltdown. All in all, there’s still a [record amount of dough in our checking accounts]( — likely enough to support consumer spending well into 2023. Let’s just hope we stop buying Pete Davidson swag and start buying gifts our loved ones actually need. Faye Flam suggests [rapid Covid tests](. Bonus Holiday Retail Reading: [American and European shoppers]( will be worlds apart in 2023. — Andrea Felsted The BOJ’s Bag of Tricks Surprise parties aren’t for everyone, especially investors. The Bank of Japan tossed a grenade at the global monetary system last night by [widening]( its yield curve-control policy. The move was supposedly meant to get Japan’s bond market running smoothly. But it also helped the BOJ keep policy loose without subjecting the yen to further abuse, writes Marcus Ashworth. This could [help global economies a little by weakening the dollar](, but it will also make investors worry about more surprises to come — including the possibility Japan will soon stop fighting deflation for the first time in forever. Richard Cookson suggests it’s the latest step in a global trend of [central banks giving up on manipulating interest rates](, another unhappy development for markets. But BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, who is due to relinquish the keys to his kingdom in April, [has stunned markets again and again]( during his near-decade in office, write Gearoid Reidy and Daniel Moss. His last surprise could be balancing the conflicting global pressures on Japan’s economy to keep it relatively steady. Telltale Charts Ahh, the holidays, a time when Americans gather around the tree to open gifts made in China. But not for long, Adrian Wooldridge writes: The US now imports more goods from Europe and the UK than China. [Maybe globalization isn’t dead; it’s just relocating](. The shipping industry guzzles oil faster than your great-uncle Herbert downs blueberry schnapps on Christmas Eve. But that era is coming to an end, David Fickling writes, now that the International Maritime Organization has put on its big-boy pants and [done something about the gargantuan carbon footprint of merchant ships](. Further Reading The Supreme Court [could dismantle America’s regulatory system]( with one word. — Bloomberg’s editorial board [Xi Jinping isn't kicking Vladimir Putin]( off his “close friends” list any time soon. — Matthew Brooker The Biden administration isn’t nearly alarmed enough about [Tunisia’s sketchy election](. — Bobby Ghosh The dollar’s biggest challenger in 2023 just might be [China’s digital yuan](. — Andy Mukherjee Without Donald Trump, [there would be no insurrection](. That alone is enough for the DOJ to prosecute. — Timothy L. O’Brien - Bonus Listening: What does [the Jan. 6 decision mean for the former president](? A Twitter Space with Sarah Green Carmichael, Jonathan Bernstein, Francis Wilkinson and Timothy L. O’Brien ICYMI The Taliban isn’t letting [Afghan women go to college](. [Biodiversity]( has a shot at survival. [Trump’s taxes]( may soon see the light of day. [3M is ditching]( harmful “[forever chemicals](.” Liam Denning [called it](: Tesla’s market cap [went below Exxon’s](. Kickers Famous men had a no good, very bad, [horrible year](. If your 401(k) was hammered in 2022, then [do this in 2023](. The secret reason [Apple stock is doing better]( than Amazon and Meta. The average adult eats [21 cookies per month]( (I’m already over-indexed on this front). Which [type]( is most popular in your state? (h/t Ellen Kominers) Notes:  Please send cookie recipes and feedback to Jessica Karl at jkarl9@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Instagram](, [TikTok](, [Twitter]( and [Facebook](. Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. 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