7/05/2004 10:37:55 AM|||Nathan Moore|||

Last night we shot off a significant amount of brightly colored gunpowder at my uncle's quasi-rural location in Wilson County. All around us individuals were shooting off fireworks, as well as those funded by municipalities around Percy Priest Lake, downtown Nashville, and Mt. Juliet, all of which we could see in the distance.

The noteworthy thing was that the number of houses shooting off their own wares was the highest any of us could remember, and for me, that goes back to the mid 1990's. I began to wonder whether there is a correlation between fireworks bought and the state of the economy.

Fireworks are the ultimate in consumable goods. For what they are, they aren't cheap (even if you can whittle the guys selling them at 6pm on July 4th down a bit, it's still gunpowder wrapped in pretty paper). Fireworks are almost instantly used, and do nothing more than create a short-lived colorful array in the sky a little ways overhead. In short, you've got to have some extra cash and be feeling reasonably confident you're not going to need that cash in order to buy them, especially when there are so many places one can "free ride" and watch fireworks at no cost.

I am curious, though, whether private firework shooting and economic confidence go together. If anyone has any data anywhere on this premise I'd love to see it. Of course, one would have to have a formula, in order to discount other factors, such as patriotic fervor aside from economic certainty, and so forth, but even that may be able to be discounted due to the prospects for free riding I noted above.

If anyone has any thoughts, please feel free to let me know.

|||108904279115545071|||Fireworks and the Economy