An Office-Party Boom, Landlineless Life, Etc.

It's often said the Federal Reserve's job in setting interest rates is to take the punch bowl away just when the party is getting good. If so, the Fed may factor in some upbeat data about this year's holiday parties. A survey of human-resources executives by Challenger, Gray & Christmas finds 79 percent of companies plan to have a party this year, virtually unchanged from 2005. What's different is that 32 percent are raising their budgets for the festivities. Just 6 percent will spend less. As for the punch bowl, it'll be suitably spiked: 60 percent of company parties will provide alcohol this year, up from 54 percent last year. If they weren't optimists, they probably wouldn't have started a business in the first place. Still, a poll of small-business owners finds them particularly buoyant these days. Polled for the Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index, 74 percent of owners said the financial condition of their business is "very good" or "good." Nor do they think it's a momentary fluke, as 79 percent "expect to be better off financially a year from now." Despite all the hassles, 92 percent "indicated they are satisfied being small-business owners." Who'd have guessed that cash would go out of style? And yet, a poll fielded for the National Retail Federation by BIGresearch finds cash being eclipsed by other kinds of currency in this year's holiday-shopping season (see the chart below). These findings are generally consistent with those of a separate survey commissioned by Visa USA among people who were waiting in lines in New York. (Ah, the constant quest for knowledge.) Asked to say which is the "fastest payment method," a plurality cited some sort of payment card (37 percent), leaving cash as the runner-up (31 percent). This survey also documented the unstartling fact that most people don't like waiting in lines, though a masochistic 10 percent said they "actually enjoy it." It sounds, though, as if people have rich lives while stuck in long lines. Nineteen percent have made a date with another person who was standing in line; 29 percent have made new friends there. Forty-four percent read or listen to music while in line, while 45 percent amuse themselves by people-watching. If consumers didn't have to wait in lines, is there any reason to suppose they'd make better use of the time?Mommas, don't let your babies go into the telephone-pole business—or, for that matter, the telephone-poll business. A new study by Telephia finds increasing numbers of major-metro households abandoning their landlines for phone service and going exclusively wireless. Detroit has the largest proportion of wireless-only households (19 percent), followed by Minneapolis-St. Paul and Tampa, Fla. (15 percent each) and Atlanta (14 percent). The rates for some other metro areas: New York, 7 percent; Los Angeles, 10 percent; Chicago, 8 percent; Philadelphia, 7 percent.If consumer spending proves strong this holiday season, it won't be thanks to year-end bonuses. A survey by Money magazine and International Communications Research finds all of 23 percent of workers expecting a bonus this year. This is one case in which the rich will not get richer: 82 percent of those making $75,000-plus said they won't get a bonus (aside from earned commissions), while 68 percent of those making less than $75,000 said the same. That helps explain why so few workers who anticipate a bonus think it'll amount to $2,500 or more (11 percent). Fifty-two percent believe it will be less than $500. What will workers who get bonuses do with the loot? Forty-four percent said they'll spend it, 28 percent will use it to pay their bills and 25 percent will put it into savings.No political orator worth his salt will fail to predict that "America's best days are still to come." It's a rhetorical flourish that makes the speaker sound optimistic but (unlike more specific forecasts) won't come back to haunt him. The catch is, a majority of adults don't believe it's true. A Rasmussen Reports poll found 41 percent of respondents agreeing that the country's best days still lie ahead, down from 48 percent in a 2004 poll. Among those under age 30, the number has fallen from 57 percent then to 40 percent now. The things we learn from ads! Let us tip our hats—or our combat helmets, as the case may be—to Fin-Nor fishing tackle for an ad (see above right) that answers the oft-asked question, "How exactly did men blow off steam between World Wars?" (And you thought it was whittling.) Another ad in the manly campaign, showing a proud fisherman standing next to his gigantic catch, lauds Fin-Nor as "The reel of choice when men were men and fish were station wagons." Gabriel deGrood Bendt of Minneapolis created the series.Many Americans are in no rush to move when they reach retirement age. That's partly because more of them than ever already live in the Sun Belt and, thus, have no need to escape from icy winters. But they're also quite attached to the places where they spent their prime years. One section of an AARP survey looked at people age 60 and older who have stayed put for at least the past five years in counties where the 60-plus population has been stable (i.e., places that aren't magnets for old folks who relocate). Among their chief reasons for aging in place rather than migrating elsewhere: "other family lives here" (cited by 21 percent), "like my current home" (14 percent) and "children live here" (10 percent). Nineteen percent of them "never thought about" moving. Seventy-six percent "feel emotionally connected to my community." But that's not to say most are actively engaged in civic life. Asked how involved they are in "the affairs of your local community," people who have stayed put were more apt to say "not very involved" (27 percent) or "not involved at all" (24 percent) than "very involved" (12 percent) or "somewhat involved" (36 percent).Maybe the jocks and the aesthetes were two distinct groups in your high school, and you've carried that duality around with you ever since. In the young-adult world, though, arts enthusiasts are much more likely than arts unenthusiasts to attend sporting events and to play sports themselves. So we learn from a new report by the National Endowment for the Arts, which burrowed through some 2002 federal data about 18-34-year-olds. The report says 54 percent of performing-arts attendees in that age group attended sporting events as well, while 26 percent of arts non-attendees went to sports events. Similarly, 44 percent of performing-arts attendees said they played sports, as did 24 percent of the non-attendees. In part, this simply reflects the tendency of young-adult arts attendees to be more actively engaged in all sorts of things. One example of this: 51 percent of them reported volunteering or engaging in charity work, vs. 19 percent of the non-attendees.

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An Office-Party Boom, Landlineless Life, Etc.

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