Economic BLUES

I'm sure everyone is well aware that we are in the midst of a recession. Tens of thousands of people are losing their jobs everyday, major corporations are either begging for money or are on the brink of extinction, and people just aren't spending the way they used to - which leads me to my main question.

*Have you ever stopped to think about how much certain things are really worth?*

Day after day I see sale signs and get constant e-mails trying to lure me into shopping but I just had the thought.. if these businesses can sell things at such low prices, how much were those items really worth to begin with? Sure we live in a capitalist society that marks up costs for corporate financial gain, but have we ever considered by how much? It's crazy to me that my coworker just bought a pair of jeans for over $100 on sale. When she showed them to me I realized that they were the exact same ones I bought last week for $35. I mean.. these jeans originally cost close to $200 so both of us saved some serious dough but come on.. she paid 3 times what I paid for the same product.

Anyway, I don't have some big time solution to the state of the economy, nor do I have any answers to the questions that I'm asking (lol). I just thought it was weird (but extremely exciting) that I have bragging rights on the jeans and thought I'd share :)