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Holiday Spending Plans Collapse
It seems, as Jim Quinn notes, the 99% are not cooperating with the 1% plan for economic recovery. As Gallup reports, average Americans plan on spending 10% less for Christmas gifts this year than last year. Not only that, but they are spending 19% less than they spent in 2007 and 18% less than they spent in 1999. The average American is spending less because they have less as the talking heads on CNBC and the rest of the MSM tell me that things are great. Opening stores on Thanksgiving will not save anyone and perhaps more critically, the last 2 times the November forecast for holiday spending slumped - the US entered recession!
(h/t @Not_Jim_Cramer)
and Jim Quinn's Burning Platform take on this...
So the stock market is at new all-time highs. GDP is at an all-time high, well above 2007 levels. Unemployment has supposedly fallen from over 10% in 2009 to only 7.3% today. Corporate profits are at all time highs. Wall Street bonuses are at all-time highs. The talking heads on CNBC and the rest of the MSM tell me that things are great. Interest rates, at least for some people and banks, are at record lows. Bernanke pumps $2.5 billion of heroin into the veins of Wall Street on a daily basis.
So why so glum average Americans? It seems average Americans plan on spending 10% less for Christmas gifts this year than last year. Not only that, but they are spending 19% less than they spent in 2007 and 18% less than they spent in 1999. Didn’t you people get the message? Stop with the goddamn austerity, whip out that credit card, and buy Chinese shit you don’t need with money you don’t have. Don’t you realize Wall Street bankers and mega-retailer CEOs are depending on your recklessness materialism to generate their $7 million bonuses?
It seems the 99% are not cooperating with the 1% plan for economic recovery. Maybe they are little depressed because their health insurance policy just got cancelled and their new Obama policy is going to cost 40% more. Maybe it is the $1,000 less the average household has to spend this year versus last year because the 2% Social Security tax reduction expired. Maybe it is because they lost their $80,000 per year job at Merck and are now working at the Dunkin Donuts across the street for $9.00 per hour – but they get free donuts at the end of the shift. Maybe it’s the fact that the real median household income is 10% below the level of 1999.
You see, reality is a bitch. Your owners can prop up the stock market and spew propaganda on the corporate media outlets, but they can’t create wealth for you. The average American is spending less because they have less. It really is that simple. And the less they spend, the more retailers will suffer. The JC Pennys, Sears, Radioshacks, Barnes & Nobles, Best Buys and many more will be forced to shutter stores, fire employees and in some cases file bankruptcy. You can smell the desperation among the mega-retail conglomerates. They over-expanded based on the delusional belief that this credit based fantasy could go on forever. They will pay the price.
Opening stores on Thanksgiving will not save their sorry asses. They fucked up and they will pay the piper. It’s a zero sum game. The average American is running on empty. The Wall Street/Hamptons crowd can not sustain the nation with their extravagant spending. I love the smell of desperation in the morning. It smells like bankruptcy and disgrace for delusional retail CEOs.
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Shop Dog (that's her name) is very, very happy! She doesn't have any credit card debt, doesn't have to smog her car, get dressed in the morning, go to work, nothing. No winnings here, but as a fellow ZH'r, I wish you and yours well.
At least you have your dog. If I was a homeless person, I would still keep my dog around for company.
https://www.google.com/search?q=five+and+dime+stores&tbm=isch&tbo=u&sour...
Awwwww, poor, poor Dumb-merica. I guess the Department of Stimulus needs to borrow a $trillion from China to do yet another helicopter drop.
Of course "planning to spend 10% less" for a Dumbmerican usually equates to "spending 100% more than planned" once the credit card bills are added up. Translation: bullish!!!
If you are going to spend money this year, try buying things online. Also sign up for free at Ebates.com and get a certain percentage cash back from your purchases at hundreds of stores. Most stores will offer free shipping on Black Friday so you'll save time and gas too.
Give bitcoins......
I'm just giving advise.
Buy gold.
Giving Advice. That's a hard one. It took years, but I finally just shut up completely. the same people I tried to talk into buying Silver at $4.35/oz. are now bitching at me that half their retirement is gone; they've forgotten I was the crazy guy bitching at them about silver. It's no use. Now, I just nod sympathetically and say, gee, that's really tough, alright.
I'm in Bangkok. My silver factory says orders are down 50%...I sell to a jewelry store in New Orleans..They tell me sales are down 78% year over year. I'm grateful for every customer I have left.
What are your orders like overall? How much are you down in (what I assume) are precious metals and gems? Are loose stones selling well, or have they dived as well?
Things ARE great...if you still have any kind of even halfways-decent paying JOB.
How do you get that? Know someone. Have government-protected monopoly access to oil, lumber, fish or some other natural resource. Work for government: you'll get union protection, "collective bargaining" protection, and "minimum wage' protection from all competition for your job...
But for us peasants...not so great. I'm outta here looking for firewood...
What is holding back our great American economy is all this "Debby Downer" doomsday whining in media outlets like the Wall St. Journal and ZeroHedge.
I, for one, did my patriotic duty today and filled up my modest but happy truck with items from Best Buy and Bed Bath and Beyond. I had both places ALL TO MYSELF! That shows you how few Americans feel patriotism nowadays...
You, Sir, are a damn fine 'Murican.
Here's a frightening thought for our korporate kulture: Americans spend less $$$ this Xmas and discover they actually feel happier....a trend sure to totally unwind the economy.
" Stop with the goddamn austerity, whip out that credit card, and buy Chinese shit you don’t need ... "
Definitely. Buy TWTR instead, there are chances it will fall apart faster than any crappy "made in China" device .
One family's answer...stealing...
Family of thieves: The moment mother, father and their SEVEN children descended on Toy R Us and ransacked the shelves
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2507869/Family-thieves-The-moment-mother-father-SEVEN-children-descended-Toy-R-Us-ransacked-shelves.html#ixzz2kjrQaNE9
See? For all those wanting to blame all the world's ills on a certain demographic, it isn't just ... oh, wait.
Money is not trickling down. Velocity is almost zero while bankers sit on trillions.
"... while bankers sit on trillions."
They literally sit on toilet paper .
Convenient .
Something is trickling down; But it don't smell like money.
I'm doing what I always do. My gifts to family and friends are things grown or made locally - wine from a winery just a few miles away, a basket of unbelievable Asian pears grown by my CSA, a CSA share for my kids, craft beer brewed from A brewery on the other side of town. Buy local, support your friendly local organic farmer and craftsman.
I do the same Skip, especially craft beer and local honey or locally roasted coffee. Keep it local.
Great idea!
Looks like J.P. Penny is going to have some company next year...
I said nothing from China this year. So, I'm asking for an Eotech or Aimpoint. Wifey would like something for skeet/clays, and the kids want a new 22 pistol. With ammo prices still high, I'm likely spending more this year.
I would assume they have not recovered from the rape yet?
As a masked highwayman, I can tell you the billfolds are getting thinner and thinner. I gave my last mark 10 bucks. His ribs were sticking out.
Things are tough all over.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GHkbMQjTkI
Highwayman? Wrong video mate.
Stand & Deliver.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B2a6l6wM2k
Marco Pironi's guitar and the drumming were actually quite good.
I was gona buy stuff, but
1) Nothing to buy but junk
2) Everything is 499$ + Tax + shipping
3) No one really wants anything
Buying crap has lost its value, because the happiness from buying stuff just doesn't last, I expect alcohol sales to go up, honestly all I want for Xmas is a bottle of Jameson ! fuck the Ps4's/99" Tv's.
I would expect for the majority of the population, people would be more happy buying food than chinese manufactured crap that is going to entertain them for a day or two and then start collecting dust.
BAH FUCKING HUMBUG!
I will never buy anything other than essential after I downgrade to a small apartment... I will stay as frugal until the whole system collapse .Screw the retail and online merchants..no more buying crap
They'll need to have the blackest black Friday for everyday up to Christmas to get people to spend.
Place your bets on which retailers fold come January
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Can we see that chart in real dollars, not just dollars that have lost value due to inflation… inflation adjusted! That's it. Knew the mind would pull it out from somewhere.
That'll show it's even lower!
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V-V
Boy we're a bunch of happy campers on here, huh? Whee. Merry Whatnot; whatever.
Spend This
BEEF CURTAINS!!!!!!!!
The only gifts i buy for people are books - they remain unread of course
a couple years back i bought my entire family $25 to lend to poor farmers on kiva. that went over real swell.
My family keeps it simple, but I have told my parents all I want for Christmas and b day is a nice big liberty gun safe. I tell them it's mainly for the kid, but I have other reasons. And from anyone else- ammo. They don't seem to understand that there is no such thing as "enough" ammo.