Holiday Spending

I have noted there was a significant increase in Christmas spending this year over the last couple of years. I hope that a lot of that increased spending was to help the 18,000,000 unemployed Americans still out there. I suspect that is not the case. After all, they as wards of the state, now have a steady income with unemployment benefits extended to three years. And as we all know this is beneficial to the economy, or at least Nancy Pelosi and some of her converts espouse that, so it is important to our economic recovery to keep them unemployed.  I can't help but think that this is not good. The longer one sucks at the government's teat the more dependent and despondent one becomes, me thinks.