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The 2013 Holiday Shopping Must-Have: A Discount
The U.S. holiday shopping season traditionally begins on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, with alluring sales and promotions. On the day the ultimate discounter, Wal-Mart's CEO resigns, as Bloomberg's Rich Yamarone notes, the most agreed-upon take so far is that sales will be difficult amid a deteriorating economy - every major retailer in the Bloomberg Orange Book has made mention of the competitive market for the consumer’s dwindling dollar. Target Corp. CEO Gregg Steinhafel said, “it’s clear that the holiday season will be highly promotional and that consumers will be laser-focused on value.”
Via Bloomberg Economist Rich Yamarone,
Holiday spending expectations are not exactly lofty. A Gallup poll conducted Nov. 7-10 found Americans estimated spending $704 per household on Christmas gifts this season, notably lower than the $770 they projected at this time last year. A separate survey conducted by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling found the persistently high rate of unemployment coupled with the long duration of unemployment are still “very real challenges many people are facing.” The November poll revealed 53 percent said they would “cut back on spending, since I am worse off financially this year,” and 33 percent claimed they would “not spend at all, because I anticipate further financial distress.” Only 11 percent had intentions to spend at the same level as a year ago, while 3 percent looked to spend more.
Target’s CEO told investors last week consumer spending remain constrained. “In particular, lower and middle income households are shopping cautiously, as they work to stay within tight, very tight, household budgets, which have seen additional pressure from this year’s payroll tax increase,” he said.
Consumers simply don’t have the wherewithal to get the economy moving — real disposable personal incomes are advancing by a gradual 1.9 percent pace, while real average hourly earnings are only 1.3 percent higher than year ago levels. The household sector is limiting its purchases to necessities, like food, and retailers are well aware of this.
My colleague Matt Nolfo and I stopped by a Target in Birmingham, Alabama during a recent speaking tour. The biggest takeaway — other than a six-pack of Bud — was the enormous size of the grocery section. What used to be a few aisles of dry goods — coffee, cereal, and chips — has ballooned to a sizable dedication of square footage including frozen food, alcohol, and freshly baked produce.
Dollar Tree Inc. has been moving in this direction for several quarters. CEO Bob Sasser highlighted this during his company’s earnings report, noting comparative sales growth in the third quarter was the result of increased sales in need-based consumables. “We’re rolling out freezers and coolers at a faster pace,” Sasser said. In the third quarter Dollar Tree installed freezers and coolers in 122 additional stores for a total of 566 store installations year-to-date exceeding the company’s original plan for 550 store installations. “We now offer frozen and refrigerated product in 3,115 stores,” Sasser said.
All this food considered, maybe the year’s best seller will be fruitcake — a heavily discounted one.
Source: Bloomberg
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I don't think I wiped my butt good enough this morning... :(
Silver and Gold are on mega sale... I think I'll convert those benjamins from toiletries to under the tree.
Talk about a sale...Twitters are already marked down 4% today! Just wait until after Christmas, when the lock-up expires.
You can't eat Twitters, you can't wipe your butt with a Twitter, and my kids don't care about Twitters anymore, so I can see why they are already on sale.
You can buy a Twitter, or two ounces of silver, for about $40. Which would you rather get in your stocking?
Ya know, seems to me that we've watched (wish I'd participated, in retrospect) a brilliant P/E expansion in US equities. With each expansion accompanied by another in an ever lengthening chain of excuses for why the E is temporarily depressed, delayed, whatever.
And here, one more time, the boom or bust, black bottom line demarcation rises up from it's hellions, ever demanding temporal feasts of shiny useless shit to fill the holes in our souls...
And at some point (like now) the consumer's real net worth and incomes have fallen enough that the expenditures ain't gonna be there and Mr E of the fabulous famous P/E ain't gonna show and P is gonna take a mighty fall.
And hopefully, it shall be centered about the temporal excesses of Christmastime shopping as opposed to the "seasonal" values and lessons otherwise being marginalized by the statists...
Oh how nice t'would be to once again see the money changers thrown from the Temple, so to speak.
One of the tastier fruitcakes on the market...
Twitter past it's prime when Weiner was weinering.
it is time for walmart and other retailers to adjust to the new economy and to target "consumers" who actually receive FRNs from the pipeline
hookers-n-blow section
derivatives aisle
art boutique
airplanes-n-yachts
new apartment buildings with 100+ floors
natgas fields and easements thereto
Hmm...I notice an overall trend in that first chart....
Housing is a laggard, not a leading indicator. Looks like it to me.
BEND OVER TGT, SHLD, WMT, DELL, AMZN, and other retailers. Fuck corp profits crap.
Short JCP too. The stock could turd out another 50% quickly.
ComestEEblays, bitchez.
"....consumers will be laser-focused on value."
If this had read, "Congress will be laser-focused on value" or "the President will be laser-focused on value", the retailers would have had nothing to worry about.
If it's stamped MADE IN CHINA I don't want it.......................guess I won't be buying anything this holiday.
There are websites where you can find only made in US products. Everlane T-shirts and Blue Diamond Gusset jeans are both excellent quality.
TD Thanks for the info, guess there are still a FEW Amerikans left with manufacturing jobs!
Duluth Trading Co firehose pants
Exactly N.C.
I am shopping the hell out of Etsy lately. Walnut cutting board / chopping block, ruby earrings made from the ends of .38 special bullets, secret book safes, natural edge madrone burl bowl, custom stamped silver bangles, vintage leather bags, a set of dinnerware printed with Audubon's birds.... Seriously, I'm 90% done shopping and the only items I have left to purchase are from Bass Pro and my local coin shop. Thank goodness my family is tiny! I know how long it takes me to find unique, thoughtful gifts for my little pack. It must take FOREVER for those with large families.
I bet some of the stuff I get from Bass Pro Shop will be made in China though.
GE Cat Well don't go to Lowes looking to buy a hammer, did that recently to find that they are all made anywhere but the good ole USSA. Why do we finance this BS for the elites? Too much financial pain out there this Christmas for so many families while they have their big bonuses. We may not be allowed to print the word CHRISTMAS next year, just sayin.
Wisconsin Cheese! Get thee to the Swiss Colony website.
LOL!! I think they got their numbers backwards.
I don't know anybody spending anything this year except for Barrycare.
Don't forget to tell the kids that the Purple Party is forcing mom and dad to cancel Christmas.
Looks like Santa has an inventory problem already.
Target and Dollar Tree are cashing in on those EBT users.
I don't know, the malls in Florida are crowded.
Maybe they're just walking areound in them for entertainment since they can't afford to do anything else?
Yup, I usually do that.
This year I'm making my family's gifts and shipping a used book off my shelf to my best bud. Done.
It's all credit, bought a few items at "Whole Paycheck" yesterday. The 2 couples in front of me at the cash register didn't have enough cash on hand to pay for the food. Quite comical if you ask me. The poor guy asked his wife if food was more expensive now. Completely clueless. American Express saved the day as usual.
The average Joe can't live within his means, let alone budget. To be honest it's like having front row seats to the book of Revelations.
Duh... so predictable. The forecast comes in soft so it can beat on Monday. We've seen this rerun thousands of times already.
Trickle down as the 0.1% piss on you.
Ive been working out on the speed bag getting ready for my 5 dollar waffle iron at Wally World.
Merica. love it or leave it.
No real raises at your job in 5 years - assuming you even have a job - and consumables up 30% in that time and it's easy to see why people are not buying shit like they used to.
My wife and I are planning a grocery expedition at our nearest Dollar Tree. Nothing like some good Soylent Green mixed with the occasional "All Natural" dog food.
Ladies and Gents, Dinner is on me tonight!!!
Must have iPoops!
Here is a good chart of Student Loan Debt Outstanding to Defaults...both rising if you couldn't guess.
http://ei.marketwatch.com/Multimedia/2013/11/11/Photos/MG/MW-BO992_stude...
All the forces of media, corporations, and political correctness have begun their ramp-up for the big consumer payday for the stores, the holidays. The newspaper inserts and catalogs are like a flood. And Yellen’s Fed is the happiest place on earth - while economists predict sales figures on every side and even the Administration, fresh from juggling employment figures, ramps up for the season as well.
You would think, then, that America’s biggest family holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas, would place special emphasis on family and faith; but, no. Both family-oriented themes are fairly absent from the ramp-up. Case in point: the See’s Candies Thanksgiving catalog arrives this year and, predictably, does not mention God, family or the Pilgrims.
Instead, it is a fairly strong endorsement of Hanukkah, i.e., “Hanukkah Lollypops” –boxed and pictured in Jewish blue and gold with lighted Hanukkah candles, “Hanukkah Peanut Brittle” – box pictured ditto, “Hanukkah Candy Bars”— in a special cut-out box with the message “Happy Hanukkah,” "Hanukkah Gold Coins' (a wealth of gold-covered chocolate coins with wishes for “Happy Hanukkah”) and, lastly, a full page featuring a large Jewish-blue gift box decorated with a blue bow, emblazoned with Festival of Lights candles and chocked full of an assortment of all the specially-designed Jewish candy boxes in miniature for the grand “Hanukkah Gift Pack” for $49.50.
Oh, yes. There is one symbol in the entire catalog of America’s first Thanksgiving – a 3 oz. tinfoil- wrapped chocolate turkey with the message: “Save room for turkey – milk chocolate turkeys. Trot them out to your holiday table. gobble gobble gobble.”
A suspicious person could be accused of wondering why the often referred to “ultimate insider,” Warren Buffett who acquired this old-fashioned company back In 1972 from the See's family, would use his companies to support the financial oligarchs and their views of American society rather than his customers’ views.
The phrase heard these past few seasons: “A War on Christmas” is largely incorrect. What we have is a war on Christians.
Spot on analysis, JR. "Christians" are the last remnants of the "old" America, and must be eliminated at all costs - so we can all march on to the progressive, Deity-free future that our Central Planners have imagined for us.
Who knew when the Berlin Wall fell down that our country would trade teams with the Soviets?
If you look at any church parking lot in America, you could hardly argue that "Christians" are not participating in the retail and shopping ponzi that has become the American economy. In fact many mega church buildings couldn't have been built with the money that came from ponzinomics such as the subprime real estate boom.
The churches could preach against the shopping, against the giving and against anything related to Wall Street corporate bonuses quite aggressively and their flock would probably still fall for the latest gimmicks.
Bottom line, "Christians" aren't any wiser or better than the rest of the population which falls for the same propaganda and crap.
Sorry, the churches missed the opportunity to educate their flock decades ago and have become just status symbols of some religious fairy tale worship at best and complicit to the schemes at worst.
fairy tale worship at best…
Only an atheist or a Jew would categorize the teachings of Jesus Christ as “fairy tale worship.”
Recovering "Christian" who has finally seen the light on this fraud.
Go with your gut. What is more likely? That a man named Jesus performed miracles or that a guy commited fraud traveling around and getting people exited? If he was a son or the son of God, then maybe Blankfein is doing "God's work".
See, when you start venturing deeper into the rabbit hole the whole picture becomes alot more defined.
EDIT: Why do you put atheists and jews in the same category? After all Jesus was a Jew and his "teachings" are leaning on the same philosophies that the Jews adhered to and still get off on. It's all from the same cabal. If it wasn't for Constantine, the gig would have been up a long time ago
“There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run, the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.” -- Napoleon
The campaigns of Napoleon, the bloody sweeps, the most severe monarchies that the world had ever known, transferred the spark of freedom to the New World. The spirit was the thirst for freedom of religion on the deck of the Mayflower and the persistence of men such as Samuel Adams, and the oratories of men such as Patrick Henry.
That spirit that was sweeping this New World outpost was the freedom for man to protect his God-given rights. And in this instance, “God” was the operative word in that true Christianity was the foundation of the belief that men were equal and deserving to be masters of their own lives under the guidance of God’s protection.
This was the guiding principle for Jefferson’s forceful statements and Madison’s careful words of law.
How, otherwise, could one explain the unification for the creation of America and the consequent growth of Western Civilization in spite of the greed and ruthless militarism of the world all through the years?
“I know men and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between Him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creation of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love and at this hour millions of men would die for Him.” --Napoleon
Governor Bradford would have agreed.
Jesus is the Savior, the Messiah, that the Jews rejected.
If millions subscribe to a philosphy it doesn't establish the basis for that philsophy as historical fact. People get it wrong all the time. It's still a belief system. Even when persons with great titles and accomplishments (questionable) use it as supporting argument to describe anything related to their world views, doesn't make it true. I know it's a boring world otherwise but here we are. I'm open to perhaps discussing creation or intelligent design with you but the Messiah cult is only a hoax. Powerful deception which benefited a very powerful elite group over the course of 2000 years to date. It will pass.
“A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell.”
--C.S. Lewis
The American system, codified by the Constitution, had its primary success in the recognition of the worth of each individual, rich and poor… and guaranteed that the people as a whole would support provisions for equal justice under the law. These are not “cult” principles; they are the teachings of Jesus Christ. And the worldwide impact of these teachings, walkure, are an historical fact. You and I will pass away; they will not.
+17Trillion!
When they were young I gave my kids Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy instead of organized religion. By the time they were old enough to see through those fictions they were pretty well innoculated against belief in magic Hebrews. I never discouraged them; my oldest went to church and Sunday school regularly for a while with a friend of hers, but it didn't take. You have to get them very young. Why do you think the Jesuits say "Give me a child until he is 7 and I will give you the man."
Obviously, your children did not make the choice; it was made for them, by you. and if they are on a path filled with error, the responsibility for that rests with you.
“Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.”
--Vladimir Lenin
And this is the philosophy used by government schools to train the little feet to follow in the path of atheistic state control for all its bitter fruit. And with no exposure to an alternative, they are easily capured.
My children have done very well, thank you. They grew up into kind, honest, hard-working people. I take credit for that. I did indeed choose not to instruct them in the tenants of the faith. A Moslem friend of mine tells me I would have been stoned in Bangladesh.
For not converting to Islam or not paying the jizya?
For raising my children without training them in their religious duties. Those would, of course, be Islamic if I were a Bangladeshi.
It does point to a pretty sharp distinction though doesn't it?
Jesus never had anyone put to death or asked that they marry the state and have it raise the children they produce ;-)
Unfortunately for these assholes this forecast is going to be far worse than even this tempered horseshit projection. Sure, a few dummies will go out and buy some sale items, but these are the same folks that steal televisions and the like in the wake of natural disasters, when there is no power and they have no home left. Other than that this sales season is going to be the canary in the coal mine for a lot of people to finally realize that they cannot spend what they do not have on stuff they do not need. Afterall, gotta save some cash for Bammacare!
The geniuses at these mega stores finally figured out that people have to eat. Wow, I'm speechless. After Walmart put in the groceries, the others are catching on. Now what is the angle?
The super mega store where the family can buy all their items in one trip? Why do we need to have several brands of the same stores selling exactly the same things? With few variations they're all the same business models carrying the same products and operating costs.
How boring! This is peak "retail" in our life times. The stores would be empty if people weren't told they need to go shopping over and over and over again. It's probably peak civilisation as we have now reached the end of the road as far as diversification goes. Economically and culturally this age has peaked.
What lies beyond? Will people wake up one day and stop shopping? Refusing to participate in this boring life style?
When all stores are doing the same thing, what is the point in having all these stores? Just be done with it already and let's move to the next level. One store chain with one line of products made from one and the same manufacturer. That's what this looks like on the outside anyway, so why waste all this time pretending this store is different from that one?
People will realize this and they will slow down their spending as the experience to "shop" has become boring and repetitive. Nevermind the fact that many are going broke doing it.
Retail is boring. The experience is annoying. Bring back the General Stores and simple supplies of basic household items. We are going to go full circle on this one. Mark my words.
Corporate greed has trumped cultural evolution. Unless we eliminate corporate greed and corporate short term thinking, we have no chance to evolve further. End of the road in so many ways and everyone knows it.
I refuse to shop for Christmas. I refuse to spend on anything more than necessities. Voting with your wallet will make a greater difference than voting at the booth.
Crash the multinationals, crash the economy, crash the tax inflows to the feral government.
Fight back through peaceful civil disobedience! Withdraw consent.
If you purchase lots of stuff online, sign up for an account at http://www.ebates.com . You'll get a certain % cash back on your purchases. It's free to join and easy to use. Every little bit of savings helps you out during these tough times.
I'd rather go to http://www.chaturbate.com . It is much more personally fulfilling and gives back a lot more.
check out Strongplay
This one is a little different this year....25th wedding anniversary falls on the 17th December so it's going to be a long party!
Puerto Rico for about 25 days with some side trips to St. Thomas and Culebra and Vieques.....half in a nice oceanfront condo....half at wife's family home outside Ponce.
Shopping?? Silver for everyone!!....its the silver anniversary so I can wont get so many weird looks....and a Tesoro TigerShark for daddy to play with....plan on working the beaches and some of the interior rivers while we're there.
I know....I'm a lucky SOB....at least I know it....
Cheers!
25 years and you live to tell about it. You're definitely beating the odds. Congrats.
Next year will be our 30th wedding anniversary. Ya gotta pick the right one (or get picked by the right one!)
I am doing okay and would actually do more shopping for Christmas, but for the following caveats:
1) The folks I shop for literally have everything (in spades) they need or want already and have indicated they don't want anymore 'crap'.
2) I can find nothing particularly 'special' to buy them. It is all the same homogenized 'crap' from coast to coast. I typically do my shopping overseas because you can obtain still unique and country specialized items (leather in Colombia, fabrics in Laos, etc.).
3) Don't have the time or the desire to go downtown to Nords, Macys, etc. and deal with the feral wild life, substance abuser insanity and the libtards flogging the "Daily Worker".
And it just doesn't feel right to spend with the economy on tender hooks.
Cakes and other goodies can be had at figis.com, swisscolony.com,
BBQ at http://www.nbsmokehouse.com/ Food does NOT go out of style!
With millions already facing higher (often substantially higher) Medical Insurance premiums (for in effect poorer "value" insurance), this too must impact on the perceived availability of "discretionary spending" even at this time of the year.
With the prospect of 2014 being even more demanding financially for "The Man in the Street" in the USA, the long-term forecast for Xmas 2015 is going to be even worse for the Main Street retailers. Wonder just how many will manage to survive??
Imagine having to return that large flatscreen to the store in order to afford Obamacare...