To read together — “We Are the 99.9%” by Paul Krugman and “The Reign of the One Percenters” by Christopher Ketcham.

Um, has the “black Friday” thing gotten out of hand? Wal-Mart shoppers in California resort to pepper-spray to eliminate the competition.

“People started screaming, pulling and pushing each other, and then the whole area filled up with pepper spray,” the Sylmar resident said. “I guess what triggered it was people started pulling the plastic off the pallets and then shoving and bombarding the display of games. It started with people pushing and screaming because they were getting shoved onto the boxes.”

The rich get richer; the not-rich scratch and scramble and trample each other for discounted Xboxes. Stephanie Clifford writes for the New York Times:

Budget-minded shoppers will be racing for bargains at ever-earlier hours while the rich mostly will not be bothering to leave home.

Toys “R” Us, Wal-Mart, Macy’s, Kohl’s, Best Buy and Target will start their Black Friday sales earlier than ever — at 9 and 10 p.m. in some instances — with dirt-cheap offers intended to secure their customers’ limited dollars. A half a day later, on Friday morning, higher-end stores like Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom will open with only a sprinkling of special sales.

The low-end and midrange retailers are risking low margins as they cut prices to attract shoppers, while executives at luxury stores say that they are actually able to sell more at full price than in recent boom years.

Next up: Wal-Mart opens arenas so the wealthy can sit in luxury boxes and watch the poor fight over flat-screen televisions.