The Philadelphia police coined the term “Black Friday” to describe the traffic on the Friday after Thanksgiving and the cliche that Black Friday is the day retailers finally get into the black ink and turn a profit is widespread.

But with the economic turmoil that has some throwing around the words recession and depression, Black Friday may have people thinking more about Black Tuesday, the day of the 1929 stock market crash.

Yet students may wish to throw the conventional wisdom aside and head to retail stores after Thanksgiving. With the bigger economic picture forcing businesses to take extreme measures to draw in consumers and stay afloat, the discounts will be better than usual. But students may want to keep in mind the discounts may get better — so don’t do too much shopping on Black Friday.

Jonathan Bohlmann, an associate professor in marketing, said Black Friday is important in terms of volume. He compared the overall trend in purchasing patterns to trading down in stock and buying the safer, less expensive stocks. Similarly, people are buying less of the more expensive goods and looking more for the better bargain, which forces the high-end retailers to reconsider their strategies. The solutions are obvious — sales, discounts and lower prices.

The discounts will be there for the taking, and students should take advantage of the reduced prices. But they should keep their receipts and spend in moderation — depending on the outcome of Black Friday, prices may go down further.

Bohlmann said this year discounts look like they are coming in earlier, as retailers have been pushing sales forward in an attempt to draw in more customers. But this may just be a sign of the economy as a whole driving down retail shopping, and people might be waiting for the next, even lower deal to come.

Black Friday may be a day of reckoning for the economy. On one hand, a strong turnout may deliver a shot of economic good news, something that has been sorely lacking in the past three months. Yet the general economic outlook may convince more people it is prudent to save for later hardships, leading to more bad news from the retail industry and more bad news for the economy as a whole.

Regardless, students can definitely take advantage of Black Friday this year, but they will need to be prudent. Now is not the time to make the extravagent purchases you dream of making — it is the time to spend wisely, find bargains and prepare for possible discounts in the future.