Shop or We'll Drop.(consumerism)

Kuntzman is a columnist for the New York Post.

Americans are nervous about the economy right now. Unemployment is ticking upward, wages are down and the stock market is performing like a once great Olympic sprinter who just turned 60 and had a hip replacement. Which raises an important question: what in the world am I going to get my father for Christmas?

Unrelated thoughts? Not in America, where the health of the national economy is critically dependent on having all of us spend as much as we can to keep struggling retailers afloat, create jobs and generate capital. Consumption is such a vital part of the American economy--it long ago superseded good old-fashioned manufacturing--that the most closely watched economic indicator is something called "consumer confidence," a vague notion that probably can't even be measured accurately.

Whenever consumer confidence plunges, as it did after the great Internet bust of 2000 or after the September 11 attacks, government officials are sent scurrying to the airwaves to say there's no reason to panic so long as everyone does his patriotic duty and shops. Remember how New York's mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, responded when asked how Americans could help New York in the days just after the attacks? He didn't say, "Donate to the Red Cross," or "Go to church and pray for our wounded city." He told them to "come to New York and spend money."

Only in America are the holidays covered in the business pages. From the day after Thanksgiving--by repute, the busiest shopping day of the year--through the hours before Christmas Day, there are daily reports of the vigor of shoppers, updates that read like the medical chart of a particularly difficult patient. And companies aren't ashamed to exploit seasonal sentimentality, either. One of our top retailers, the already bankrupt Kmart, has made clear that it'll go under entirely if this shopping season isn't a big success. So patriotic Americans know what to do to rescue this 100-year-old company and save tens of thousands of jobs. Spend, spend, spend.

I'm not usually a cynic. I love this season from the first chill in the air all the way until the credit-card bills come due in February. There's nothing like the joy of buying a cherished friend that hard-to- find gift or receiving something that you've wanted for months but didn't have the nerve to buy for yourself. Like the rotary phone I got my wife ...