Today, the Friday after Thanksgiving, has been named Black Friday because in many cases it is the day hoards of people go Christmas shopping and because of all the shopping frenzies it is the first day a lot of the merchants' books come in the black. Up until this day they have been operating in the red.
With the urgency of Christmas shopping in the minds of the public the merchants do what they can to entice shoppers to visit their stores instead of their competitors. Some open their doors at midnight and give prizes for the first 100 or 200 shoppers and some open their doors at 4:30. They all have some things on sale but I would think others are marked up to offset the sales ones they are losing money on. When they do all this, I think the greed factor is added to the recipe. Every merchant wants it all and all the customers want to beat their fellow shoppers to the best deals. I think I remember a couple of retail stores where people were bodily harmed during Black Friday... last year in the news one lady was crushed to death by the opening door stampede.
Maybe we should call today Black & Blue or Green Friday.....or Greed Day.