This year’s turnout for Black Friday will predict if consumers — who tightened their belt buckles for Thanksgiving — will tighten their wallets for the holiday season.As stores like Best Buy advertise heavily discounted television sets, Global Positioning Systems and DVDs, economics professor James Richardson said all predictions regarding consumer turnout are inconclusive — the effects of the economic downturn are impossible to predict.”All the predictions are that retail sales will be a lot lower this year than last year,” Richardson said. “People expect relatively moderate spending by consumers, [but] we aren’t sure. The people will tell us over this weekend how concerned they really are [about the economy].”A preliminary survey indicates recently lowered gas prices and “pent-up demand” might be a “silver lining” for Black Friday shopping, according to a news release from the National Retail Federation.”Retailers realize that low prices will get consumers into stores this holiday season, and this could be the most heavily promotional Black Friday in history,” said Tracy Mullin, NFR president, in the news release. “Shoppers who held off buying a DVD player or winter coat over the last few months will find that prices may literally be too good to pass up.”Kalle Lasn, editor-in-chief of Adbusters, a not-for-profit magazine and organization aimed to end “existing power structures,” said Buy Nothing Day was started in 1992 to compete with the consumer-driven Black Friday, which is the day after Thanksgiving.”This year, because of the economy crunch we’re in, it looks like it’s going to be the very biggest we’ve ever had,” Lasn said. “For the first time, people are really sort of interested … Instead of turning it into a joke, they’re taking it more seriously this year.”Lasn called over consumerism the possible cause of the “economic meltdown,” and he said a specific goal of Buy Nothing Day was for people to have a “whole different kind of Black Friday followed by a whole different kind of Christmas.”—-Contact Lindsey Meaux at [email protected]