Fearless Faith

Each year, the commercial success of the holiday season is scrutinized, analyzed and pondered over. Waiting for the numbers to reveal themselves can be a nervous time for economists whose job it is to gently nudge fiscal policy in the most productive directions. It is no easy task. If policy was comprised of logical straightforward formulations, we might all sleep better at night. With apologies to the sociologists among us, it’s not exactly rocket science. And therein lies the rub.

Sociology is a reflection and study of various cultural components and their interactions with one another. It i...