What is more joyful than spending money? Having more money.
The "Double Eleven" that just passed did not bring carnival to the public, but it was a mess. From e-commerce to consumers, the Internet was full of complaints, and this phenomenon is not accidental. The "Double Eleven" online shopping festival started in 2009. From merchants shouting hard to buyers shopping passionately, the entire market once soared all the way. Until 2022, the total transaction amount of "Double Eleven" and other related information will no longer be announced. Major platforms use all kinds of roundabout rhetoric to avoid the decline of the market. The world is like chess, nothing more than this.
Lao Tzu said: "The reverse is the movement of Tao". The sun must set at noon, the moon waxes and wanes, cold comes and summer comes, autumn harvests and winter stores, this is the law of nature. The changes in the "Double Eleven" market are certainly related to the chaos, the public's aesthetic fatigue, too many fancy shopping festivals and the daily life of live streaming, but obviously a major reason is that the wallets of consumers are shrinking, the uncertainty about the future is increasing, and thus the willingness to consume is insufficient. The ups and downs of "Double Eleven" are a microcosm of the rise and fall of the fundamentals of the macro-economy, and a single leaf can tell the autumn.
"The weak are the use of the way", this is Lao Tzu's methodology, to a certain extent, it is like the humble hexagram in the "Book of Changes", the hexagram is all auspicious and has no evil, and it can be called the perfect hexagram among the sixty-four hexagrams. However, impulse shopping when emotional, deliberately showing off luxurious and exquisite life in front of others, launching large projects on a whim, and leveraging and high-debt investment beyond the ability to control risks are all manifestations of vitality showing off its "strength", and the result is "things grow old when they are strong", reckless, and evil.
If a carnival is simply based on spending, then this carnival is obviously unsustainable. With the economic upswing, buying, increasing consumption, expanding production, improving employment, and making money... This is a virtuous cycle. Under downward pressure, for most consumers, the pragmatic approach is to be less obsessed with the pleasure of emptying the shopping cart, and think more about how to turn the bank card balance into a larger number. As an operator, don't blindly expand the scale, increase investment, launch new projects quickly, and roll up without a bottom line for "Double Eleven". Instead, be calmer, more cautious, think more about the long term, and do subtraction at the right time. Except for very few exceptional opportunities, industries and projects, it is better to be slower and more stable during this cycle.
Therefore, in this sense, the theme of "Double Eleven" should be changed from online shopping to financial management. The so-called financial management means, first, to find ways to increase income, and second, to reduce expenditures in a prudent manner. Whether it is consumption or investment, we must strive to improve the efficiency of wealth use and output. It is difficult to increase value and maintain value. We should be prepared for danger in times of peace and solve danger in times of danger. In fact, even in the past when buying and buying was a trend, were all those consumption and investments really necessary? How many orders were returned or left at home to gather dust? When the bubble of Xu Jiayin, the boss of Evergrande, one of China's largest real estate developers, blew rapidly to the Milky Way, Pan Shiyi, the boss of SOHO, a large real estate developer, could only watch the excitement on the sidelines. As a result, the former worked hard but was deeply trapped in the abyss of 2 trillion debts, while the latter did nothing and cashed out 30 billion funds and ran away smoothly. And always adhering to the heart of financial management, "the weak use the way", and being well prepared, we can better grasp the next upward cycle of "the opposite move the way".
比买买买花钱还更开心的事是什么？是有了更多的钱。
刚刚过去的“双十一”并没有给大众带来狂欢，倒是落了一地鸡毛，从电商到消费者，互联网一片吐槽，而这种现象并非偶发。始于2009年的“双十一”网络购物节，从商家卖力吆喝到买家激情购物，整个市场曾经一路狂飙，直到从2022年起不再公布“双十一”总交易额等有关信息，各大平台改以种种绕来绕去的话术来回避大盘的下跌。世事如棋，不过如此。
老子说：“反者道之动”。日中必昃，月盈则亏，寒来暑来，秋收冬藏，这是自然规律。“双十一”市场的变化，固然与乱象丛生的变味、大众的审美疲劳、花样购物节过多和直播带货的日常化有关，但显然一大主因，是广大消费者现在荷包缩水，对前程的不确定感增强，从而消费意愿不足。而“双十一”的潮起潮退，正是宏观经济基本面的上扬与下行的一个缩影，一叶而知秋。
“弱者道之用”，这是老子的方法论，在一定程度上就像《易经》的谦卦，卦象全吉无凶，堪称六十四卦中的完美卦。而像情绪化时冲动购物、在他人面前刻意晒奢华精致生活、拍脑袋上马大工程大项目、超出风险把控能力地加杠杆高负债投资，都是一种生命力在逞“强”的体现，结果是“物壮则老”，妄作，凶。
如果一种狂欢是单纯依靠支出，那这种狂欢显然是不可持续的。在经济上扬势头下，买买买、增加消费、扩大生产、提升就业、赚赚赚……这是一种良性循环，而在下行压力下，对多数消费者来说，务实之计，是少沉迷于清空购物车那一秒的快感，多想想如何让银行卡余额变为一个更大的数字。而作为经营者，不要盲目做大规模、加大投资、大上快上新项目、为了“双十一”而无底线地卷卷卷，而是要更加冷静，更加慎重，更加从长远着想，适时做减法。除了极少数例外的时机、行业和项目，值此周期，宁愿慢一点，也要稳一些。
所以，在这个意义上，“双十一”的主题该从网购改为理财了。所谓理财，一是想方设法地增加收入，二是精打细算地减少支出，无论是消费还是投资，都要力争提高财富的使用和产出效率。增值殊难、保值不易，居安思危，居危更要解危。实际上，即使是过去买买买蔚为风潮的岁月，那些消费、那些投资，真的全是必须的吗？有多少订单是事后退货或留在家里吃灰的？许老板的泡沫急剧吹到银河系时，潘总无所作为只能在一边看热闹，结果前者累死累活，却深陷两万亿债务的深渊不能自拔，后者躺平啥也没干，反套现三百亿资金顺利跑路。而始终秉持理财之心，“弱者道之用”，准备充分，就能更好地把握“反者道之动”的下一个上扬周期。
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