Dollar Store Economics

On Thursday, my coworkers and I will be entertaining the Occupational Therapy Psych patients at Ben Taub General Hospital by throwing them a Halloween party.  My particular duty for the party is to find some constructive, useful, and non-threatening items to wrap up and give as prizes to the winners of our party games.  With my limited budget, I hit the Dollar Tree after work today.

Now I’m sure the picture below is unintentionally humorous rather than pointedly sarcastic.  This particular store markets itself with a faux newspaper in the window:

I couldn’t stop laughing…

The creator of this particular ad campaign felt s/he was making a timely reference to the current economy, and attempting to capitalize on the average shopper’s cutting back on spending.  But let’s face it: love him or hate him, our President’s economic policies are the polar opposite of “cutting back on spending”.  [For a vivid example of the current Administration’s economic policies, see this chart at Instapundit.]  The US government is clearly not shopping at the Dollar Tree.

Asinine marketing campaign notwithstanding, I found some great gifts there, including hairbrushes, playing cards, nice lotions, and perfume.  I also found some fantastic clearance photo albums and notecards at the Marshalls in the same shopping center (West Gray at Waugh).  I got some Halloween candy buckets to wrap everything up, and here’s the final product:

now that I look at it, that row of faces is a bit creepy, huh?