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Retail Store Closures Soar In 2014: At Highest Pace Since Lehman Collapse
What a better way to celebrate the rigged markets that are telegraphing a "durable" recovery, than with a Credit Suisse report showing, beyond a reasonable doubt, that when it comes to traditional bricks and mortar retailers, who have now closed more stores, or over 2,400 units, so far in 2014 and well double the total amount of storefront closures in 2013, this year has been the worst year for conventional discretionary spending since the start of the great financial crisis!
From Credit Suisse's Michael Exstein
Since the start of 2014, retailers have announced the closure of more than 2,400 units, amounting to 22.6 million square feet, more than double the closures at this point in 2013 (940 units and 6.9 million square feet). After several years of attempting to cut overhead costs, the acceleration in store closures appears to be a response on the part of retailers to cope with the challenge of ecommerce and structural declines in foot traffic, and the need to address declining levels of in-store productivity. The year-to-date totals for store closing activities now challenges 2009 as the most recent year for the highest number of store closings announcements.
While distressed retailers (eg. Radio Shack) and bankruptcies, which have reached a three-year peak year-to-date, make up 63% of the unit closures in 2014, they comprise only 34% of the total square footage closed. On a square footage basis, broadline retailers contributed over 28% of closures, with M, DDS, JCP, TGT, and Sam's Club participating in right-sizing their store bases.
Office supply stores have been equally significant contributors to the rationalization process as they grapple with the effects of broader distribution and deeper online penetration. We expect this trend to continue as Office Depot evaluates its real estate in the wake of its merger with OfficeMax. Even dollar stores and drug stores, which combined have consistently built out hundreds of stores per year, are beginning to reel back on expansion, with Family Dollar and Walgreens both planning to shutter underperforming stores.
The acceleration in retail closings follows several years of negative sales growth for many retailers. After slashing expenses and taking a more disciplined approach to spending, there appear to be few levers left to pull, as the top line growth remains difficult. Mall-based stores (both department store anchors and specialty apparel) in particular appear to have taken advantage of leases that have come up for renewal, as opportunities to close underproductive stores. Those that have not participated in the trend to close stores—such as higher end retailers (eg. JWN, Bloomingdale's, and Saks)—have been relocating existing stores to more productive malls, or areas of existing malls. JWN for example recently announced the relocation of its Westfield Horton Plaza San Diego store to an upgraded area within the same mall, and is doing the same thing in Honolulu at the Ala Moana Center.
Of course, it wouldn't be a Wall Street sellside piece if there wasn't a bullish spin on the data:
We would view more momentum in store closures as a positive for the retail industry. Retail as a whole remains overcapacitied.... further rationalization appears to be a necessary change in trend where even during good economic times the store base is being adjusted
Yup - nothing but blue skies ahead.
In fact, here is some more good news. As Bank of America notes, Consumer Durable spending - another key component of any, well, durable recovery - is founering. In their words: "Durable spending has had a very weak recovery by historic standards. The ratio of consumer durables to GDP shows that while the share of spending has recovered, it remains at recessionary levels."
Don't worry, that too is "positive" for the... making shit up industry.
Of course, who needs to spend on durables when one can just spend on stocks that in the new normal can never, ever go down?
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RECOVERY SUMMER #4
Hey Mo, hey Mo ... nyuck nyuck nyuck.
Recovery Year 5! Booooooyah!!!
"They'll" do whatever it takes to keep the "stawk market" from crashing during this mid-term election year...
ECONOMIC UTOPIA BY CENTRAL PLANNER DECREE*
*By SNAP/EBT, Social Security, Medicare, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Unemployment Insurance, Extended UI, Thaw Heating Assistance, Social Disability Insurance (SSI) -'and reverse mortgages, credit cards (21% average interest rates now), AND POPPIN' TAGS, BITCHES!!!
*Buy stock in that online dating service FOR FARMERS ONLY (because "city people don't understand") - I saw a commercial for this dot.com stock company on teeeveee & would've swore it was a parody, but it wasn't...
Look at the lead up to the crash, 2007 and 2008. It's clear these fools don't take action until the walls are burning around them and all the smoke alarms are on fire.
Everyone is all in and desperate to prove things are fine. We are witnessing 5 years(and counting) of the evidence for how delusional people will choose to be when faced with reality.
RECOVERY SUMMER IV
fixed it for you, Roman Empire style. when it comes to collapses go big or go Rome.
Get those valuation whores from CBRE or Cushman Wakefield to appraise them - tell them what value you want and that they can charge duouble fees once the loans close - take out a maximum LTC mortgage - take cash out - walk away - really fly away with the new Barron aircraft - to somewhere south and sunny. Buy a condo on the beach and smile. Never make a payment. File bankrupcty right before the 12th hour. Your presonal recovery. Spend it like its yours. Live like a politician or better, a bankster. Smile and remember you can't take it with you.
Good!
I hope this means the mom & pop Main Street stores kick some ass now cause they don't have the bloated corporate overhead and actually help their local customers find what they want to buy!
What a concept!!
Love my 100 year old general store for it! And their awesome beef jerky too!
Like we need moar stores.
Restaurants from Mickey D's to Ruth Chris, and the Starbucks &
Chipotles, too, are busting at the seams with the extremely large flock of plastic yielding Visa/Discovery/Amex/etc. grazers.
Both Whole Foods & Starbucks accept SNAP/EBT Cards now, as they need to maintain their revenue stream by all means necessary.
I guess next years pending jump in same store sales growth will be viewed UBER BULLISH! I doubt these stores were to closed due to the weather excuse.... it must be the consumer is broke and indebted to their eyeballs reality....
Recent flyer from local Pizza delivey restaurant has printed "Now accepting EBT"... guess you can't blame them, go where the money is...
The model is clearly changing.
1. Rampant comsumerism in North America is finished. why? Because there is a rapidly shrinking middle class being replaced by an elite in China running slave shops.
2. People are psychologically shifting away from buying that which they do not need .
3. The Aging population in the United States does not drive GDP like young people with lots of kids. Harry Dent covered the 11 year delay between what happens in Japan and the United States well in his book The Demographic Cliff which I recommend reading.
4. The United States does not produce much any more! All their production was moved off shore! If they were ever required to consume what they produce they would turn into a third world nation over night. I think the trigger point will be when Russia forces Europe to buy natural gas and oil denominated in either Euros or Rubles. The moment that happens I figure the dollar will fall off the fiscal cliff and you'll see bread at $15 / loaf. Meanwhile US Senators (super-retards) are PUSHING TO PUT SANCTIONS ON RUSSIA, who is doing the United States a massive favor of using the United States dollar. Are they f*ked in the head? The first repurcussion of Russian Sanctions *WILL* be the total abandonment of the US dollar by Russia, and even China.
Real inflation on necessities of life (food, energy, housing, etc.) is building rapidly and will be the catalyst that triggers the next crash (which is now visible to those with good eyesight), which is much closer than many either admit and/or realize.
Compare real wages with real inflation on INFLEXIBLE (i.e. necessary) costs of living & spot the massive gap between the these two metrics.
Whatever can't be sustained, isn't sustainable.
There's little doubt in my mind that real inflation on necessities is now running at least 7% annualized, and this is before one considers the higher tax-flation, regulatory-flation, health care impacts & other increased costs of living just now starting to kick in.
This is why discretionary is getting murdered in the real economy & the pain has only just begun - we're going to see a watershed moment & historic, structural shift in spending on necessities vs discretionary goods/services unlike anything in our lifetimes in the near future (it's already underway).
I think it is on purpose.
They must kill the dollar.
Let's have a standing ovation for the arrogant, narcissistic lying illegal alien indonesian muslim sociopath fudge packer in chief who made this all happen while living its grand imperial golf lifestyle at serf and peasant tax expense.... and don't forget the $17K dress for the wookie...
What's not addressed here and in many other ZH reports is whether the drop in bricks and mortar sales is being replaced by on-line transactions. That's the key point, because if they are it just means technology-driven channels swapping rather than a retail collapse as such.
Online transactions are contracting, also.
Look at the real numbers (strip several layers of the onion off to get at the accurate data) for shippers like FedEx & UPS.
Fugly.
Now compare this and other retail closure events with the "retail hiring" line on the official unemployment stats published each month.
Retail employment numbers mights still be up if you include the immigrants spinning the Liquidation Sale signs on the street corners.
Isn't that shit depressing? I must have seen ten of those guys this weekend.
On a related note, I went to PetSmart on Saturday, and there's a Best Buy at the opposite end of the shopping center. The Best Buy literally had five cars in the lot, and this was at 2 in the afternoon.
Petsmart and Best Buy....both depress me.
Over the weekend saw a box with a robotic-like arm waving a sign. At least it looked sober.
The SEIU better organize these meth heads before it's too late.
....yet HOG sales are doing just fine (allowing for a little weather glitch).
This one is quite a puzzle....I guess the TBTF bankers are buying them.
Upscale is the only level of retail I see having any success. Thing is, there's likely over-capacity there, too.
Then why is there a new CVS every 4 blocks?
Walgreens is opening all over in the city as well. What's with all the drug stores?
heavily medicated is the NWO way. cue, the pusher....
Large doses of Ritalin for schoolboys who refuse to behave like schoolgirls.
Some people may knock your socio-medical idea but I feel the same. Altho Ritalin use is up for girls, the vast majority of victims of this drug policy are boys who commit the crime of not being able to sit in hard seats continuously for hours.
Kids were meant to learn on the move. Anything else is like a prison.
Because most americans spend the last third of their lives getting fatter, sicker and carrying ever larger bags of pills.
For the same reason insurance companies over hired ... the concept of 40 million americans ignoring the law that mandates they purchase health insurance was never even considered. Which is why they all backed Obummercare ...
Insurers backed 0zer0care because they WROTE 0zer0care with a win-win clause. They either get 40 milion new HC subscribers, or the Govt Taxpayer BAILS OUT the Insurance companies on their losses due to implementing the law without getting the new HC subscribers. That little FACT will be known to everyone this Summer when 0zer0 is forced to Bail Out these insurers rather than losing the lawsuits that will be filed. The backlash to these bailouts will be epic, and only eclipsed this fall when the double digit 0zer0care premium increases hit along with the cancelling of tens of million of Employer Sponsored HC plans. The 0zer0care diaster is just getting started and is going to get infinitely worse in the next 6-18 months.
Walgreens is the largest dedicated brick & mortar pharmacy chain store & has announced plans to begin closing stores.
Watch taxflation & real inflation (including health care inflation) on necessities, which is beginning to catch fire, force even more "inflexible/non-discretionary" goods/service providers to "right size" in the coming years.
cyn...
Thank obamascare providing windfall profits for hospitals, insurance companies and drug companies at the expense of patients and those who actually provide hands on care of patients...
They are gaming the presciption drug pricing like a superstar. Saw a PBS special on the price discrepancies on pricing and those two and especially CVS were screwing the pooch raw. They compared a number of drugs and the price variances were incredible I'm talking some of them were 400% or more what other pharmacies were talking and that was brand name versus brand name and generic vs. generic. It was truly astounding. Costco was the best of the big boys for offering best value and the corner drugstores (local) were also noted for making CVS look like drugsters of the channel. What a bunch of Aholes...... but a great biz model for the present screw whomever you can.
when healthcare costs, mortgages, food, education & taxes are out of control... what else does Obama expect? Other than Him & W expecting us to go buy useless shit at the mall?
I think you're supposed to be eating peas, or something.
Monsanto GMO round-up ready peas fortified with arsenic.
This is just normal "capitalism". We should want retail stores closing. If they weren't closing there'd be a problem.
I'm all for creative destruction but we're seeing a NET loss, which is a bad thing. Well, at least a symptom of a deeper bad thing.
But but but but! We're in a recovery! Food prices and real estate hyperinflation doesn't matter! Real wages going down don't matter! People working more today for food and board than during feudal times in Europe don't matter! They had between 8 weeks and six months of vacations per year, you slaves MIGHT have 8 days a year, if you're lucky... while congress was 238 days in vacation during 2013... the elite makes more compared to the average guy than during the worst times in history... but eh, we're not slaves, we're free! The tevee told us so!
My friend has a nice soft couch you may consider spending time on now and again. /
Like this?
Moving in with parents becomes more common for the middle-aged
"Those aged 50 to 64 who live in their parents' homes has surged in recent years, reflecting the grim economic aftermath of the Great Recession"
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-adults-in-parents-home-20140421,0,...
Los Angeles Times
By Walter Hamilton
April 20, 2014, 6:37 p.m.
Debbie Rohr lives with her husband and twin teenage sons in a well-tended three-bedroom home in Salinas.
The ranch-style house has a spacious kitchen that looks out on a yard filled with rosebushes. It's a modest but comfortable house, the type that Rohr, 52, pictured for herself at this stage of life.
She just never imagined that it would be her childhood home, a return to a bedroom where she once hung posters of Olivia Newton-John and curled up with her beloved Mrs. Beasley doll.
Driven by economic necessity — Rohr has been chronically unemployed and her husband lost his job last year — she moved her family back home with her 77-year-old mother.
At a time when the still sluggish economy has sent a flood of jobless young adults back home, older people are quietly moving in with their parents at twice the rate of their younger counterparts...."
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-adults-in-parents-home-20140421,0,...
No ,you must be wrong it has to be those fuckin poor people fucking us, they don't work at all. /sarc
BULLISH!!!
Barry Barry Bullish!!!!!
Hopey Changey ONWARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just called Office Despot for a half dozen splitter cables. Drone left me on hold for 5 minutes and than came back and said they only sold them on line. Checked their half assed website and they were like 25 bucks apeice.
Cut and pasted same on Amazon and got it them for 8.95 each with free shipping.
Mid retail is dead, morte, doomed - over and done. They will just bleed out for the next few years, but they are toast.
Big boxes rent space >> prop up demand >> fluffs rent rates >> gives the suburbanites someplace to drive & spend >> needz carz & gasoleens >> must keep tax revenyooz afloat moar
"Inflation masquerading as a recovery...inflation trading masquerading as worthy of a 100 million dollar bonus."
Utilities have moonshot as Wall Street/Washington nexus simply tells America to drop dead "but at least make it entertaining."
Just got back from Survivalist Camp in NH and driving from New York was like driving through the Zombie Apocalypse. These Cronies have really left America for dead this time and and indeed the first major defaults are now coming at this so called recovery like the Fukushima Tsunami.
Don't know how this one gets spun to gin up the voting booth but certainly the bulk of USA simply has given up on the whole "you're looking out for me" meme. How these folks cannot go home to their districts and not be stunned at what "in the name of terror" has been done to their people is beyond me.
The irony of course is that as these spreads flatten Wall Street gets flattened too .
Railroads look good. "Long boxcars" I guess as well.
When you say it's like driving through the Zombie Apocalypse do you mean from an economic/social or 'security' perspective? Or both?
How these folks cannot go home to their districts and not be stunned at what "in the name of terror" has been done to their people is beyond me.
And 95% or more of them will be reelected in November by those same people.
With respect, but you are assuming that the replacement won't be bought off as well.
I have a friend that is running for sheriff in a "suburb county" of a major American city. He is primarily doing it to so as to help him get the word out on the local and federal criminals. He says that he cannot believe what he is seeing and experiencing and he is as informed and jaded as me.
Two of his "opponents," one each from the faux parties, are nothing more than shills to assure the reelection of the incumbent. The local, but oligarch controlled, propaganda rag has done all they can to highlight the incumbent and his shill "opponents." The fix was in even before the candidates announced.
My dad told me that, about 15 years ago, an acquaintance of his ran and miraculously won for sheriff in his semi-rural county. They did all they could, by hook and crook to prevent it, but he won. During his term ALL power institutions, governments, police forces, etc., did all they could to thwart his admin. They even used state power to make it clear that any prior wrong doing he might expose would be hung around HIS neck and not the perps.
The sheriff did not run for reelection.
"If voting worked, Obama wouldn't be Bush Jr. 2.0."
If you ever get physically close to these red/blue party people, you can feel the corruption. The foot soldiers, useful idiot/idealists, are at the bottom and increasingly towards the top you get the gangster vibe. In the middle you get a range from cog-dissed hysterics to cynical gangster wannabes.
There's a palpable ugliness to those who seek and wield political power; it's as real in small towns as Wash DC.
That place is like a fucking mortuary these days. I went there recently to get some blank DVDs. Other than some old guy looking for the bathroom, it was just me and half a dozen employees.
Back in the day kids hung out in malls for something to do. Now they have snap chat, Kardashians, and youtube.
Why are you peeps buying anything @ Brick & Mortar or even online from the overpriced banditos?
Meritline has splitters, cables, memory & such for 70% to 90% less than the usual suspect retail bandits.
Hey, that was me. Prostate's a bitch these days.
Saw Palmetto, tequila and lots of beer dude!
" they only sell them online"
I heard that... so why have an 800 number, I emailed. No response.
Moar hopey changey.
I buy everything online now, waaaaay cheaper.
Almost ... Walmart still kicks Amazons butt on many small items. But if the trend holds true its only a matter of time before they are toast as well.
...or if Amazon starts accepting SNAP cards, WalMart will be paws up in a matter of hours.
Nope, not quite. WM finally got their foot in the banking door. Besides, fedgov will never let the best aggregator of Chinese slave-labor fall by the wayside.
I stand corrected. Thank you.
When I go to Walmart I feel like I have entered a third world country. When I go to Amazon, not so much.
You get so much more from Walmart though, like free Spanish lessons. And the other shoppers try to help you save time, like when you're looking at toothpaste and find a box of Cheeze-its and a training bra, saves you the effort of going to the other side of the store and getting them yourself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HteJ3MoDQNA
Niles Standish buys his caulk from brick and mortar establishments....
That's some nice caulk .
Do you like buying online caulk?
I prefer Home Depot, so I can see & touch the caulk before I buy.
It's always good to hang with the guys in the insulation dept., just talkin' about caulk.
Over the course of the year, I get a lot of caulk at the depot.
Where do you think obama gets most of his caulk?
Imagine all the caulk that guy gets, bein' the pres & all.
Here's to having all the caulkyou cna handle. yeee haaa!
Is that a selfie pic?
Why isn't Barry swooping in to bail out these retailers? Seeing as it worked so well for GM.
Other than for food, the only retail stores I go to are Home Depot and Lowes. I buy things that would be prohibitively expensive to ship or things I need now. Everything else I buy from Amazon.
Kidhorn, you've just described the rest of the country in 5 years time. All these brick and mortar retailers and middle distributors are dead or dying. Except for things you can't wait 4-5 days on for delivery from the brown truck (i.e. groceries, repair/hardware stuff, gas, take out/food, etc) or that would be prohibitively expensive to ship (landscaping stuff, etc), they are all being put out of business by ecommerce.
We would view more momentum in store closures as a positive for the retail industry.
Translated; Stock prices for retail Inc will increase as more cash is borrowed at 0% for structural stock buy-back.
What an unmitigated crock of bullshit.
When the final toilet is flushed it will be hailed as a positive, a clearing of the field prior to new growth.
One might remember that more real people will be left jobless as a result of this action, but thats OK since its been proved that unemployment benefits boost the economy.
When the final toilet is flushed
THAT is funny. I think I'll use that from time to time. Shoot me the address to send royalty payments.
Closing unproductive stores IS positive, at least compared to leaving unproductive stores open. What's not positive is the economy causing those stores to be unproductive.
Office Depot is a 50,000 stationary store. I buy toner catridges and paper on-line - much cheaper and easier than carrying the boxes of paper. 1/2 the time staples does not even have boxes of legal paper, which is kinda amazing since they sell it by the package at double the price. LOWes, HD, etc - too man ystores within a 3- to 5- mile radius. I wonder what margins would be if women didn't buy a potted plant or two everu visit. BTW. if Staples had the legal boxes I would buy them, but at the least, its the same price delivered for free - right to my door.
Just an aside, but expect clothing prices to go much higher later this year due to the water shortages in CA which supplies cotton to China.
How many blacksmiths were there in 1900? How many in 1940? Ok - the internet revolution is about 20 years old or so.....
You don't have to be an historical oracle to see where this is all headed.
There are just as many people working with iron and steel today. They just happen to be asian is all.
Please let's put this myth to rest. US manufacturing output is six times what it was in 1970.
Is the "manufacture" of cheeseburgers and pizzas included in your numbers?
US heavy industry is long gone: Textiles/Apparel? Furniture? Shoes? Steel? Chemicals? Machinery? Shipbuilding? Electronics? Electrical equipment? Railroad equipment? Automobiles? Gypsum? Paper/Pulpwood? All check.
Here in my town in the northeast an auto parts chain store closed during the winter and stopped paying the snow plow guys. So for all of February and almost all of March the store was fully stocked but the parking lot had over a foot of snow on it. Once the snow melted they came and took the stock out of the store and removed the signage.
Can't stay open for long selling retail 90% off + all sorts of coupons. I checked out a few big box stores near me and could barely walk down the isle so much clothes was flooding the aisles.
The lady on NPR who wrote a book about all this stuff fllooding our shores from India,. China and Bangladesh [etc] said not only are the shelves/supplies massively overstocked, but there are thousands of ships from Asia waiting offshore to dump billions more T-shirts, sweaters, trinkets and Thingamajigs ... and so on.
I have my doubts about the future of many of these retail stores.
Understand your point but I am hoping that that blacksmiths get back to the 1900 level.
Observation:
If many local stores close up and people have to drive 50 miles to get stuff, it will be like going back in time when there was only a Sears Roebuck in the next town.
Seems like healthcare is going the same way.
The way I see it there are 2 or 3 major storefronts of everything competing:
Drugs & Toiletries: WG, CVS, RiteAid
Office supplies: OD, Staples.
Electronics: BB. (used to be CompUSA, Circuit City, Good Guys)
Megastore: WM, Target
Clothing, Home: Sears, JCP, Macy, Nordstrom.
Membership: Sams, Costco.
Maybe only the small ones will survive....Dollar and 99c and Subway.
Sears and JCP are going under. I think Kohls is more likley a clothing store survivor than they are.
Rumor is that Amazon will buy Sears "thus ending the existence of the US Postal Service."
Netflix is taking dead aim at the cable business as well (ironically that was founded by a US Postal Service guy.)
This thing is looking more and more like Resovoir Dogs by the day.
Electronics: BB. (used to be CompUSA, Circuit City, Good Guys)
Comp USA is still in business*named Tiger Direct now*, and is under Tiger Direct.coms parent company.
I bet Sears is next....the next big headline name...but a lot of restaurants are going to close as soon as Obamacare kicks in for them....they cant afford it...even though Chipolte is getting great gains...I think others are not...
"overcapacitied"? Amazing how capabilitied the writer is to have the abilitudiousness to expand the language.
oh ye of little faith....these are green shoots....the chairsatan of the federal reserve will use this as another excuse to untaper....now if only the bitch could figure out how to unstop her asshole with her head, we might be able to salvage the titanic....
Wait, we're still in recovery right ?
New normal period survival is worst than those during the crisis
Netflix is taking dead aim at the cable business as well (ironically that was founded by a US Postal Service guy.)
IF Netflix doesn't start spending some cash on adding to their menu of flics, they will dead meat soon also.And I mean SOON.SOS all the time, and a NEW release is 3yrs old!.
if someone could just blow COMCAST off the map.....
....just came to me .....I don't fucking care. I shop in dumpsters!!!!!!! More selection, better prices.
"overcapacitied"
That's not even a real word you stupid motherfucking cocksucking asshole douchebag fucktard
Went into a retail store and bought nothing over the weekend. I've had the feeling for a number of years that there was nothing worth spending money on. This weekend I realized that there was nothing there worth buying, period. Even if I had money, I wouldn't have spent it on anything. Gas food and shelter. No other needs. So much crap littering the shelves none of which is designed to address basic needs or make life easier.
If you think about it, most things you'd buy at a store would cause an inconvenience.
Gasoline Killed Retail
Julia - Check out the 100 Things or Less Movement. It's about minimalism, which I've adopted as a lifestyle, and I'm immensely better off for it, financially, mentally, physically & in all other respects.
Many falsely believe it's about deprivation. It's not. It's not at all about deprivation.
It's about quality over quantity, and not buying the typical 93% of things that most people buy that not only separate them from their money, but that add nothing of value to their lives whatsoever, and end up having to be stored on the floor or some shelf somewhere, collecting dust, or put into a basement or storage unit, doing likewise.
And the number 100 is not a hard & fast mandate. It's just a number to set forth the notion of a goal that less items of greater quality relating to one's true passions is far superior to more items of lesser quality not having anything to do with one's true passions.
I am fortunately of decent financial means, yet pursuing qualitative passions by only purchasing goods of excellent quality relevant to such has saved me money, time, stress/anxiety and a great deal of storage space and clutter.
recently saw an advert for 'buying new', whereby they try to tell us not to waste our time trying to fix things, just buy a new one. (to a degree they must know that chinese crap can't be fixed - cheap generators throwing rods and such. they used subpar foundries with poor metal recipes)
'buy a new one'
Cleveland 1957
Cop rides buy on a Harley Trike. The sound of a horse and wagon clip-clop on the red brick street, "Rags, Rags, Junk, Junk." Later another, this one a vegetable wagon. Men came to the door selling vacumes, sharpening knives, droping off the milk, ice, and coal. Wenzel's Pickles making, bottling, and shipping out of their Daisey Avenue Alley, cigar smokers all. Our first washing machine in the backyard hooked to a hose, sunny days only. Icebox gave way to electric, gas replaced coal. The mills shut down. People left. We left.
Best writing of the day!! Poetry.