Economics of Valentine

Valentine's Day is just another peak business, sales, and shopping season after yuletide. It is an occasion for peddlers in goods, gifts, and allied services to claim they have got your back. 

The season may rapidly sell cakes and chocolate bars, candies and wines, teddy bears and red roses, rings and clothes, dinner tables and games, cinema tickets and music shows, tours and rooms, popcorn and ice-cream, baskets and fruits, scented candles and blue lights, lies and half-truths. 


Just about anything that appeals to consumers' rational appetite for more and the childish section of the human brain may sell during Valentine.


In the run up to Valentine's Day, comedy skits and newspaper cartoons may showcase a stingy or broke 'lover' who chooses Valentine as an opportune time to pick a serious and nagging fight, in a ploy to save on or avoid the tax of gift buying. Against such backgrounds, popular appeal to keep up with the joneses may prompt individuals to plan and possibly make buying decisions.


Among the uninitiated and unmarried youth, as well as the gullible and naive, the Valentine bug may freely distribute oral infections, STDs, unplanned pregnancies, and needless abortion kits. 


Personally, every upcoming Valentine season reminds me of a precious high school mate of mine, who reportedly died from complications of an abortion. The global economy lost one sweet and budding solutions-generator to a needless casualty. 


To my economic mind, the Valentine season holds both costs and benefits, risks and returns for the variety of agents (individuals,  households, firms and governments) concerned. While an associated spurt may contribute immensely to productivity and national output of goods and services. A likely surge in consumer irrationality and an andrenaline burst during Valentine celebrations may yield unwanted bads (such as drunken sprees and teenage pregnancies)  that development practitioners may struggle to manage afterwards. 


Even though sugary items in the fast-moving-consumer-goods (FCMG) market may be beneficial to trade volume in monetary terms, excessive and unregulated consumption may be adverse to sustainable health and well being. This may explain why the Nigerian government, in its recent domestic revenue drive, hinted on a N10/litre sugar tax on sweetened beverages, citing reduction of health risks such as diabetes as a high point.


Undoubtedly, just like Valentine weather, trade cycles may fluctuate or be fleeting, but rippling effects of buying decisions made during such cycles and seasons tend to be enduring. 


If you ask me about the shades the true love, I would tell you true love thinks in the language, literature, and culture of sustainability. True love considers longer term payoffs for current and recurring decisions and actions. True love thinks through human actions and alternative underlying motives before giving a hoot. Like air, true love is always present even when invisible.


In conclusion, whether we choose to responsibly and passionately celebrate St. Valentine's Day, or calmly opt out of it, we can all breathe clean air and keep the 5Ps of sustainable development firmly in mind. 


Let us all sincerely:

✔️ Love #People;

✔️ Keep the #Peace;

✔️ Share the #Prosperity;

✔️ Protect the #Planet and;

✔️ Build #Partnerships that matter


Sure we can.


#Businessclimate #Sustainabledevelopment #Strategy #Trade #Health #SDG3 #SDG4 #Education #Nigeria #Tax #Youth #Mentalhealth #Sugartax

#StValentinesDay #cleanair #Celebrateresponsibly


Photo credit: Oluyomi Ola-David

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