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Christmas In October - Desperate Measures
Submitted by Jim Quinn of The Burning Platform
Christmas In October - Desperate Measures
The desperation of retailers grows by the day. I head to Wal-Mart and Giant in Harleysville every Sunday morning at 7:00 am. to do my weekly grocery shopping. I go to Wal-Mart at opening to avoid the freaks we see weekly on the People of Wal-Mart post. The workers at Wal-Mart are only a small step above the customers. They can barely communicate, rarely look you in the eye, and generally act like they are prisoners in an asylum.
I’m in winter/bad times ahead prep mode. I had a load of fire wood delivered yesterday which I wheelbarrowed to the back yard and stacked with my already decent sized stack. Last week I took an empty propane canister back to Wal-Mart to replace it with a full canister. That would give me three full propane tanks. I left the empty tank outside next to the propane cage and went in to pay. The old lady cashier with the gravelly smoker voice told me she would call for someone to get me a new tank.
I went over the cage and patiently waited for a Wal-Mart drone to come out, unlock the propane cage and give me a full tank. Two minutes, five minutes, and eventually ten minutes go by with no one coming out to help me. The cashier pokes her head out the door and shrugs her shoulders and says no one is responding to her calls. What a well oiled machine they have at Wal-Mart. Eventually the old lady abandoned her cashier post and in a painstakingly slow manner proceeded to unlock one bin after another until she found a full tank. I’m sure a line of unhappy customers were piling up at the only register in the garden center while she spent ten minutes getting me my propane tank.
A transaction that should have taken five minutes from start to finish ended up taking closer to twenty five minutes, with another five or six customers also dissatisfied with their extra long wait. This is a perfect example of how not to do business. Maybe Wal-Mart’s problems are bigger than households having less to spend. They are attempting to maintain their profit margins by reducing staff hours, hiring low quality people, and paying them shit wages. In the short run it may keep profits higher, but in the long-run customers will go elsewhere. Except most of the elsewhere stores closed up years ago when Wal-Mart arrived and underpriced them into bankruptcy.
My shopping experience at Giant is generally pleasant. The staff are nice, competent, and have been there for years. They know what they are doing and serve you with a smile. But their store is part of a worldwide conglomerate, so things have changed for the worse over the last four months. They renovated the entire store, creating bigger aisles and moving stuff around. That’s annoying, but after a while you figure out where they moved the stuff you want. The real negative change was the dreaded “Everyday Low Pricing”. This weasel phrase means you will be paying more. This is what the Apple idiot CEO – Ron Johnson – did at JC Penney. It put them on a rapid path to bankruptcy.
The weekly sale items at Giant have virtually disappeared. This has coincided with the drastic increase in beef, pork and fresh produce prices. Since “Every Day Low Pricing” went into affect our weekly grocery bill has gone up 20%. And I am buying far less beef and more chicken. In the past I would stock up on sale items and put beef, pork and whatever was on sale in our storage area freezer. Now I am stuck buying what we need that week. No bargains, just fully priced food items. Be forewarned, whenever you see a store announce “Everyday Low Pricing” you are getting screwed.
The Boos Begin in August & Bells Start Jingling in October
The desperation of Wal-Mart and most of the other mega-retail chains is no more clearly evident than in their relentlessly ridiculous acceleration of holiday marketing displays. I was flabbergasted when I saw Halloween candy, decorations and costumes in row after row BEFORE Labor Day at my local Wal-Mart. Selling Halloween candy two months before Halloween is idiotic and a sure sign of desperation. Retailers have run out of merchandising ideas. I wouldn’t even consider buying Halloween candy until the week before Halloween. Do Wal-Mart freaks of the week actually buy Halloween merchandise in September?
Holidays used to be special occasions that lent a sense of sales urgency for retailers for a week or two, to pump up sales. Now Wal-Mart and the rest of the dying retailers have Christmas, Easter, Fourth of July, and Halloween displays up for 80% of the year. There is no sense of urgency to buy. From September 1 though October 31 there are rows and rows of bags of corporate produced chemicals disguised as candy. I suppose the obese masses buy this crap in anticipation of Halloween, tell themselves they’ll only take one, and then shovel the entire bag down their gullets.
So last week, still a full two weeks before Halloween, Wal-Mart had already converted their entire garden center into a Christmas wonderland of cheap mass produced Chinese cookie cutter Christmas decorations and lights that will blow out after three hours of use. They had also converted aisles at the front of the store to Christmas displays. Who the hell shops for Christmas crap in October? There is nothing like having cheap Chinese Christmas crap available for over two months to create a sense of urgency to buy. Wal-Mart and the rest of the mega-retailers have got nothin. They have no original merchandising ideas. They don’t even try anymore. They source low quality goods from China and compete solely on price. I can’t wait for the Easter candy to appear on Wal-Mart’s shelves in late December.
Black Thanksgiving
Black Friday is dead. Long live Black Thanksgiving. The riots and stampedes by the ignorant masses for toasters and HDTVs on Black Friday are now being replaced by retailers and malls across America opening at 6:00 pm on Thanksgiving. It actually seems fitting. How better to give thanks for our mass consumption, debt financed, materialistic, iGadget addicted society than to open stores on Thanksgiving. Spending time with family is overrated anyway. If you had to spend six hours with cousin Eddie and aunt Bethany, you’d be looking forward to an early opening at Macy’s.
The bullshit message from the mega-retailers is: “We’re not opening on Thanksgiving out of desperation or greed. We’re doing it simply to satisfy the demands of our customers”. It’s a racist national holiday anyway. We should be going to an Indian run casino on Thanksgiving to make up for our past sins. Opening stores and forcing workers to work on Thanksgiving is pathetic, disgusting and a truly desperate measure in this consumer empire in decline. The law of diminishing returns has been invoked upon the mega-retailers that dominate our suburban sprawl paradise.
These retailers can start holiday merchandising three months before the actual holiday. They can open their doors on Thanksgiving, Easter and Christmas. It’s nothing more than shuffling the deck furniture on the Titanic. We’ve allowed bankers, politicians and corporate titans to financialize our economy, gutting the once thriving middle class, sending manufacturing jobs overseas, and convincing the clueless masses that consumer goods purchased with debt is equal to wealth. But, we’ve reached the point of no return. There are 248 million working age Americans and 102 million of them are not employed. Of the 146 million working Americans, 82 million of them make less than $30,000 per year.
While retailers have added billions of square feet since 1989, real median net worth is 5% lower over 24 years. Retailers are attempting to get blood from a stone. The stone is in debt, approaching retirement with no savings and dead broke.
We have one entity that deserves the most credit for destroying the American Dream. Real median household income is lower than it was in 1989. The 2008 collapse was caused by the easy money bubble machine at the Federal Reserve. We had the opportunity to hit the reset button, implement rational economic and monetary policies, take our lumps, and make the banking culprits pay for their crimes. Instead, the easily manipulated masses believed the Wall Street storyline and allowed the Federal Reserve and feckless politicians to save the banking cabal with extreme money printing and debt creation. This has pushed the middle class closer to the breaking point, while further enriching the oligarchs. The Federal Reserve saved their owners and lured the masses further into debt.
The Fed, Wall Street, and Washington DC have successfully driven consumer debt to an all-time high, blasting through the $3 trillion level. Declining real incomes and rising debt are a sure recipe for success.
Our entire economic paradigm is built upon desperate measures. Zero interest rates, $3 trillion of QE, systematic accounting fraud, fudged economic data, and doling out subprime loans to auto renters and University of Phoenix wannabes have failed to revive our moribund economy. Delusions don’t die easily. But they do die. We are reaching the limit of this delusionary dream built upon debt, denial, and deception. Make sure you wolf down that Thanksgiving feast before 5:00 pm. There are HDTV’s to fight for at 6:00 pm.
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FORWARD !
so walmart ain't what it useta be
yawn
giants was a more positive shopping experience
bloody cool
retailers are desperate
you don't say
wonder if my bath is ready yet. the dogs seem content.
NEXT!
WalMart is freaking doomed. They built themselves up by exporting American jobs to China. Now Americans have less money than the Chinese.
Someday the Chinese will be exporting jobs to America and Americans will be working 80 hours weeks in menial subsistence jobs.
It's the Anglo business model that's been circulating the globe for 200 years. Whoever says serfdom is dead lies.
while the sheep-tards are fighting over iDiot things and killing each other on Black Asshole Friday, I'll buy 20 ounces of silver to add to the stacks...and I'll smile knowing I've done the right thing once again to preserve my wealth as the end of the great fiat ponzi scheme draws ever closer.
"There are 248 million working age Americans and 102 million of them are not employed. Of the 146 million working Americans, 82 million of them make less than $30,000 per year."
The author forgot to finish this paragraph (and thought); viz., "And the others are parasites working for .gov."
See, any idiot can gain competitive advantage if they work seven days per week when others work six days per week. But what does the next genius do? Work eight days per week?
Wal Mart's whole business now revolves around food stamps. They drops new stores in food stamp spots with mainly grocery items and the other household stuff (clothes, etc) is reduced dramatically.
They are catering to the welfare crowd. If the EBT cards stop - Wal Mart is dead.
This writer says he is in Harleysville? What state? Probably fairly rural state. The other more urban parts of the country are far more zombie-fied.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harleysville,_Pennsylvania
I read that around 1/3 of their revenues is from EBT cards. Almost 20% of all EBT funding is spent at Walmart. Half of their stores would close if not for EBT
Never underestimate the stupidity of the people and their need to believe that their leaders have their best interest at heart.
Not stupidity: willful ignorance.
Everyone knows that promising free shit to everyone won't work. But the consequences won't be felt for a long time. So in the meantime, vote for the Free Shit Party, and enjoy.
That's a good point. People fall through the cracks by stealth. If the fed were to do it's job then 60% would fall through the crack at the same time and there would be (more) blood running in the streets. This way, the crack victims are anecdotal and you think yourself paranoid for the way things are operating
'The people can't do shit...blame TPTB then all the politicians first
Ignorance=doesn't know, stupidity=won't learn.... willful ignorance is most definitely stupidity....
That is the problem, both parties are for Free Shit. They just put it into different buckets and to different people.
It's not their fault! They know no other way and by far the most of them don't have the facilities to understand the truth. 9/11 should have taught everyone the truth of that, except they can't handle the truth. What percentage of the population understand why the government's explanation is physically IMPOSSIBLE?
They're no different from other livestock. They're taught from the day they're jerked out by their ankles and whacked on their ass where the tit and the feeding trough is. They normally get 13 years of public "education" -- a lie itself in that it's not "education" at all; it's conditioning, training and brain-washing -- so they will behave in the manner that their masters, herders, and owners desire.
Eddie Bernays and his uncle Siggie figured out the equation for enslavement of the masses and the criminals at the top of their tribe forced it down our throats:
"If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it."
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the public is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country."
Israeli Prime Minister and Nobel "Peace" Prize recipient Menachem Begin (1977-1983) in a speech to the Knesset [New Statesman Magazine June 25 1982]:
“Our race is the Master Race. We are divine gods on this earth. We are as different from the inferior races as they are from insects. In fact, compared to our race, other races are beasts and animals, cattle at best. Other races are considered as human excrement. Our destiny is to rule over the inferior races. Our worldly wise kingdom will be ruled by our leader with a rod of iron. The masses will lick our feet and serve us as our slaves.”
Who's the "racist"?
Capiche?
So we DO know better...but do the wrong thing anyways.. So now we muzt ...ACT SURPRISED.
C'mon.....The PM of Israel said that in front of a large group where his words were being recorded? I find that very hard to believe.
I've never seen the following site before today, but it purports otherwise:
http://rense.com/general90/begin_quote.htm
Your take on Bernays, however, is dead nuts on. That mother fucker better be burning in hell.
Here you go Feral.
http://12160.info/group/demand911truthnow/forum/topics/israel-did-9-11-a...
"Our race is the Master Race. We are divine gods on this earth, blah blah blah", is a bogus quote.
Anyone who believes Begin, or anybody else, could have delivered such a mad rant in public is a moron. Not even Hitler or Obama would have dared, for heaven's sake!
http://begincenterdiary.blogspot.fr/2009/05/correcting-misquotation-repu...
The Title in your link states:
"This blog is a support for the main Menachem Begin Heritage Center site."
I suggest that blog is not unbiased wrt Begin.
The rant sounds like something that terrorist, racist sonovabitch Begin would have said, but I suspect he would have been a bit more political correct concerning when and where he said it.
Not stupidity...desperate hope.
reminds me..I need to order another 5 cords of wood!
reminds ME that i have to order another 5 packs of N95 masks !
P100's, the N95's are not fine enough.The CDC protocols are incorrect,again.
The Burning Platform. After Zerohedge, the next best financial site available. Excellent stuff everyday!
Yeah, except Quinn has been predicting imminent collapse, winter 4th turning stuff continuously for years. And yet, the system is still holding together, and Quinn nevers questions his own apocalyptic predictions when they are continuely wrong. It's clear to me that there won't be a collapse unless the Oligarchs lose control. What is happening is a slow, grinding impoverishment of the bottom 80% with just enough propaganda, welfare handouts, and class/ethnic conflict to keep them from rising up. The 20% middle class just below the middle class are the key, because they are the ones that keep the system going. As long as they continue to work like dogs for the promise or fear of maintaining their middle-class lifestyles things will continue.
The system is holding together? The median net worth just went from 135K to 81K in SEVEN YEARS! That is not holding together, that is rapid decline
The "system" is the systematic transfer of wealth from the bottom 80% to the Oligarchs, and the complete capture of both political parties and the mainstream media by the Oligarchs. That system is very much holding together. There is no widespread civil unrest. Most of the population still believes the mainstream media propaganda. Elections are still successfully manipulated by the Oligarchs. Declining median net worth is part of the plan, not evidence that the plan isn't working.
We need to start listing what things, if lost or no longer available or occurring, would actually cause a collapse:
Starting the list here....
1. Toilet Paper.
2. Utlities: electric, gas, water, sewer.
3. Clean drinking water, bottles or other.
4. Public transit in the cities, including: bus, train, subway.
5. Pandemic: Ebola, EV-D68, plague.
You forgot the big big one - the internets. Take away the internets, and people will go into beast mode.
Seems like Venezuela is primed for steps 2-5, should they keep resisting the cold, wet embrace of The Squid.
More like the bottom 40-99.9% to the oligarchs. Those below 40% have nothing to take except for their iphones and other worthless gadgets. A household making $350K a year is in the top 99%. Do you think they're part of the elite? They will be eaten up just like the rest of us.
Correction: "The 20% middle class just below the Oligarchs"
Median American Savings: $0
Sante says his team feared finding out that Americans simply had zero dollars left after paying their bills.
http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2014/05/14/median-american-s...
I stopped reading after "A report from Interest.com, part of financial website Bankrate.com (NYSE: RATE), finds the median household savings nationwide is zero despite the average American having $668 left over each month after paying their bills."
So it's the silly people's fault. The implication is that they could save money but they choose not to. I don't live in the US so who knows - maybe they're right. But I have done enough budgets in my time to have more than reasonable doubt. Perhaps they could save their rent money if they lived under a bridge. Perhaps they could save on transport if they walked 50 miles to and from work each day. Perhaps, if only they didn't go out on weekends they could save $200 per year and in ten years that would be $2000! Perhaps in calculating "income" they used a mean average for income and added on "income" such as "increased" housing equity and compulsory retirement savings. Gee, from where did I get the idea for that last sentence?
I'll believe the zero savings, but I won't believe the $668 left over each month.
I sed the numbers were wrong. Silly me just had a second look at that link. Next sentence sez they used figures from the BLS. Was I right or was I right???!!!
Yep, no collapse. The Fed just printed well over $3 trillion in currency and the federal government alone borrowed nearly $8 trillion in what the last 6 years for no reason. You are to seeing a collapse as Greenspan is to seeing a bubble. LOL
Quinn has been predicting imminent collapse, winter 4th turning stuff continuously for years.
Amen. Has he predicted it quadrillion times yet?
It's clear to me that there won't be a collapse unless the Oligarchs lose control.
Double Amen.
Let's hypothesize: They want society to implode. Now, let's scope the data to see if said data buttresses this thesis. (Cue Jeopardy music a couple thousand times) Yes. 98.7% of all data points support this thesis.
We went from a budget surplus (Thanks again, Newt) to total shit in 20 years. To think this was somebody's plan used to be unthinkable. Now, it's impossible not to think it's somebody's plan.
But the Kulture is dead. Quinn got that, and Kunstler. That is even more important but we usually just focus on our guts. There is virtually nothing Amerika deserves to carry into the future. It has destroyed its own children's future. Unforgivable, where I come from.
Many of us have been amazed at the Fed's ability to triage this bleeding patient of an economy, but saying the wheels have come off doesn't make us wrong, it's just timing. The day will come and many now feel it's soon.
I second that emotion. Quinn is very intelligent and "gets it". He's also a great writer with a sarcastic wit! www.theburningplatform.com
Real Median Hosehold Net Worth. Still at positive $81,000. Multiply by number of households... that's what you got left to steal before there's no middle class left.
Thanks for the info.
WalMart can put up Christmas decorations (are we still allowed to call it Christmas??) in May for all I care. I don't go in there unless there's no other choice and I don't have to buy it.
And, by the way, that monkey is one trigger pull away from having a serious case of "scope eye" for Christmas.
It used to be that Christmas sales at least waited until Thanksgiving. Then they dialed it back to Halloween. This year, for the first time, I heard my first freaking Christmas commercial two weeks ago. RIDICULOUS!
Most middle-class Americans look at their retirement savings and see only a pile of regrets. That's according to a new study showing one-third (34 percent) of middle-class respondents are not currently saving a cent for retirement, while a majority (72 percent) wish they had started saving earlier in life. ADVERTISEMENT Median retirement savings dropped $5,000 from $25,000 in 2013 to $20,000 in 2014, according to the fifth annual Wells-Fargo Middle-Class Retirement study.
http://www.ibtimes.com/middle-class-americans-living-regret-about-retire...
Future looks bleaker I'm afraid . When they destroyed the Middle Class private sector they destroyed consumerism . Very little of the trillions of QE trickled down to the average Middle Class person .
Amerikan Kulture is dead. It is tricky living in a dead empire, but possible. Possible to not only survive but to thrive. But you have to see it for what it is - D.O.A. Most everyone will vociferously disagree. There are exceptions but exceptions prove the rule. There a lot of young people, millenials who are slowly getting what is happening. Help them if you can. But my generation is by and large helpless.
I don't talk about it any more. I just go about shoring up my biz and getting ready for more of a long, slow slide. For me the biggest enemies are kultural entropy; that and .gov working to take everything it can from the productive. It's a little like being a healthy cell in a body shot through with terminal cancer. But not exactly analogous because we can move while a cell cannot.
So much inbreeding has stopped the thinking process. Black Friday sale can come around Thanksgiving then.
Too many turds floating in the gene pool.
Nature always wins in the end.
It's the active encouragement to breed down by TPTB that makes it so special. Of course there's the problem of large herds of dumb animals stampeding at any time and running over anything that gets in their way, including their owners. Ferguson MO is the first sign of a restive herd.
Really?
"The Master Race will Will Ebola away"?
it would make a hell of a lot of sense to just move black spend day all the way back to Halloween. Then we can combine everything into the 4th quarter holiday. Spend everything you have left after the first two quarters of pay everything you make to .gov. Third quarter pay your college debt. 4th quarter give it all to the corporations and bankers.
it works better cause black is a holloween color and our economy and American dream is completely hollowed out. Nothin left but a rotting carcass.
I head to Wal-Mart every Sunday morning at 7:00 am. to do my weekly grocery shopping
I can't take him serious after that. Grow your food, order it online, go to local farmer's markets, etc. There are too many options to support Wal-Mart and their frankenfood...
Basically, he shops at WalMart, then calls her a whore.
Farmer's Markets are great just be prepared to spend quite a bit more. If you don't have the extra money you can't go there.
There isn't any way to compete with these giant operations. For example, we raise and keep chickens. From a purely dollars and cents standpoint we'd be smart to get rid of the chickens and just eat the feed.
Granted we don't put tubes down their throats with hormones and ABX, but just what we feed them alone costs moar than what we get back aside from the fun. I don't think the pricing of anything is by accident, and I lump it into the "financialization" of every damn thing.
Points are all well taken. but only if the farm markets are around your location. He might live pretty far out and gas is expensive.
ever notice the antibiotic correlation? They pump the cows, sheep, pigs, chicken, and the sheeple full of antibiotics for enough years they can all stand at the .gov trough wallowing in their own feces and not even notice it.
Take a look at these guys for hormone free food.
https://www.zayconfoods.com/
https://www.zayconfoods.com/products
Great prices.
They deliver to local churches and such - open to all.
i spend my money at establishments with only one cash register. it's that simple. if they aren't family owned, the ownership isn't far, and they tend to stock things that are worth the price, know what they have, there is human interaction and everybody ends up happy.
why do we all look for 'cheap'? i do not want cheap. i want fair. fair price for me, and fair price for the people i purchase from, so they can be happy, make enough money to live a decent life, be employed, employee others and this all leads to a better community.
why make it a negative before it is a negative? your little sunday morning excursion doesn't count for anything. i wish zh would not post the nothing-better-to-do-but-blog-about-how-i-am-stocking-up-on-toilet-paper idioits. there are so many of them. even then, if retail sales are down it is great that people are not throwing their money away on shit form china. zh has become somewhat of a waste of time. stick with owh content, which, except the too-often-trying-to-be-snarky parts, is often quite good.
It's always Christmas in Heaven.
Forgot how good that movie was!
Thx SR
Song to go with...
http://134.223.116.148:15871/cgi-bin/blockpage.cgi?ws-session=3954252968
yah but no carry out, and it's always on the lay-away plan.
My friend has owned a bar in my little rivertown for 40 years. With the record corn and bean harvest, he is having a record year. Booze sales, through the roof. Merry Christmas from 'FlyOver Country'.
I know a dumbass that has a friend that owns a bar in fly over country whose liquor sales are through the roof cause an unusually good crop season has subsidized ebt and government price controlled farm income enough that the sheepls can afford extra liquor. Yep, things are real great in your area dumbass. First of all, if there was such a huge ass fucking crop prices should have gone down instead fly over country received a government sponsored windfall. Second, the amount of people on ebt and other welfare in these areas is huge and is the only thing keeping the bar open. Without ebt people would still buy food its the bar that ends up with the money. So in conclusion if you are a dumbass STFU. The Burning Platform is the shit. Great piece!
Damn Uncle Milty, you do resemble a frog, a frog that's been taking it up the ass way too long. Need to chill out and enjoy the moment. Highly recommend stopping by your friend's bar and having a nice single aged malt break. Enjoy the moment, cause there ain't a damn thing you can do about it...
Fight club, and we are all a little pissed, drink or not.
Farm subsidies....and I spend a lot of time in flyover country....not sure where all those ebts are and they are dwarfed by the numbers on either coast....
"maintain profit margins by reducing staff hours, hiring low quality people, and paying them shit wages"
Obongo did build that.
Out of bailing wire, bubblegum and lots of duct tape.....
the next one could be worse. Hillary is full on communist.
Was she, or all other actors that we so fortunate to have them reside over us in all aspects of life, a communist PRIOR to October of 2008?
Bear in mind that before that date we are: "# 1 in just about anything"," best country in the world", "beacon of capitalism" etc....
Funny how everything that is happening to us POST October 2008 SUDDENLY HAS A NEW NAME: "communism".
Let's say you are in process of creating a car - a "capitalism" and for a decades you are implementing EVERYTHING that is associated with that product, but at the end you end up with all wooden donkey cart - a "communism".
Now, the only wood you had in mind to use for your car would have been some burly exotic for the dashboard deco.
Hope that, at least, you get my dilema...
Madness Of A Lost Society: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOshw4kIGR4
Just how desperate?...
Meet the IRS' State and local government's version of civil forfeiture!
These guys (retailers) are bringing in a shit ton of inventory based on what I'm seeing in import volumes.
No way they move even half of it in this economy. So around end Q1 15 some big mall names will have had last call.
Destroying the American Dream? A dream is not real so how do you destroy it? Maybe it should be destroying the aspirations of Americans, that might be more sensible than destroying a dream.
I prefer "Black Turkey Day". It's fraught with meaning on multiple levels.
The Kosher Nostra won.
The rest of us lose. What rhymes with "lose", "booze", and "ooze"?
Just came in from a 24/7 Wally-World. They had folks there lined up to buy 22 ammo, that came in at 0400 in the morning. Keep in mind, one can only buy 3 boxes per person.
They were sold out in 5 minutes at 06:05. I asked the clerk, and he acknowledged this was a daily event.
The early bird gets the worm.
And the early worm gets the bird.
Poetic. Thank you.
The second mouse gets the cheese.
In any high powered operation an occasional mouse must be sacrificed.
it gives one hope
Mrs Atomizer and I haven't celebrated Christmas for many years (exchanging gifts). Why? Each day we celebrate wealth, health, and happiness.
Buying depreciated shit products doesn't make us gleam in short lived happiness. We laugh at people who get buyers remorse the following day.
Hoo, hoo, hoo. Merry Christmas in October.
Most of my family and cousins have tried to live the American dream as we grew up in the 1950s and 1960. We all, except one of us, started small businesses. Over the last 3 decades we have all noticed the same trends. These trends are destroying many small businesses in America.
The first trend is labor wages. Every boy and girl in America must now get his/her masters degree even if he or she has ---- for brains. Trying to find competent help with realistic expectations as to wages for the work performed is now next to impossible. My cousin recently told me he had 7 applicants for a job to help him install gutters and he noted 4 of them held college degrees. The one applicant who had done manual labor was offered the job but turned it down because he wanted $25 per hour to start (job started at $18 hour). He ended up hiring one of college degree people who last 2 days and did nothing but bitch about how hard the work was.
The next trend is labor benefits. In the past many small businesses that started on a shoe-string would fail today. Today government has now made it mandatory that benefits be paid to all employees from the get go. This requirement is killing start up businesses. Look in your local strip mall - businesses fail within days or months not years. Unless a small business person has deep pockets it is almost impossible to make it through the start up period unless you can attract a large cliental fast.
In the last decade half of the businesses in my family have gone belly up – mine included. Labor wages and benefits were a big reason. But there are many more reasons such as lines of credit cut off, major cost increases in products and higher taxes. If government continues to malign small businesses government welfare will increase exponentially…
"The first trend is labor wages."
Can you explain why other studies show real wages have gone down since the 70s?
I agree many workers have lost the ability to work hard, but more is going on here... Does productivity come into the picture?
Just asking.
The BLS does not track wages for small mom and pop businesses. The BLS tracks real wages based on medium and large size businesses with more than 50 employees.
This is what produces the discrepency. Medium and large size businesses have the where with all to wait until they get a lower wage person or in many cases the person they are hiring is in a foriegn country (that is India,...). I read where 70% of the real wage loss since the 1970s is based outsourced foriegn persons and the other 30% of wage loss is hiring temps.
In contrast small mom and pop businesses are forced to pay more to get a "trained, competent and reliable" worker. I went through 5 employees back in the early 2000's before I found a one that could learn to do a job I asked without constant supervision.
Sunday paper has Christmas ads...Planting
now for winter greens.
I am looking forward to the 2015 Easter stuff, Hecho en China, to come out next week. I have a weakness for Bunnies.
Hell, I'm ready to stock up for 4th of July!! Banderas norteamericanas hechas en China
I feel like Halloween is 365 days a year in scary ole U.S of A. Imagine how will it look in 10years.
I tend to avoid Walmart but will order from them via on-line shopping...that way I can avoid the shopper and worker population. However, Walmart can't seem to keep their on-line ordering system in working order. I'm giving up on them - it now happens so frequently that it isn't worth my time.
If we just increased their min wage to $50 per hour I am sure their service would get much better.
Last time I went into Wal Mart I was looking for a canvas gym bag and a plastic squirt gun for my grandkid. I asked about a half dozen people and half of them didn't understand what I wanted one of them took me to the currently gutted roped off garden section (remodeled for xmas crap) and pointed over the top of a tile workers head to a rack of plastic crap I couldn't see or access. I grabbed a couple of shooting targets and headed to the cash register to pay where there were huge lines of zombies waiting to buy misc. crap while dozens of nitwit trainee clerks wandered aimlessly through the store unable to assist customers or man cash registers. Walmart is a great place to go if you feel the need to become depressed. I put my targets down and left.
1) I take my Propane tank to my local gas station and they refill it for me, but then we have many vehicles around here that run on Propane.
2) What in the FUCK are you doing shopping at Walmart?
Good point. Complaining about last shopping experience and the dummies who shop and work at walmart.
However I dont think people realize how access to unlimited funding to mega franchises is wiping-out smaller better more convient alternatives. Our government is tryingto wipe-out main street in favor of global players.
Halloween sales are priced in. LOL.
Mad TV Vancome Ladyhttp://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NWXkHp_1bT8
Enjoy..
But.. but... but the Zionist media whore on my TV says there's a war on Christmas.
" Holidays used to be special occasions " Yes they were, because it was the only time of the year us kids got anything. Only toys bought were X-mas toys, only candy bought was Easter, only big turkey dinner was Thanksgiving and X-mas. Needless to say, retailers now own our holidays and have ruined and perverted everyone of them to gain market share. I hate X-mas so bad, I loath it with a passion. As kids, Mom put up X-mas decorations the fifth day before X-mas. Thus the heightened expectations. Now, fucking hell, X-mas in October is not far off. Christmas music for 2 solid months, who would not be disgusted by that? Plus, kids are packing in candy and toys nearly daily. My grandson visits me he gets bike rides along the lake, hikes in the woods, and soon fishing trips on the rivers. His other grandpa is a born again American, takes him toy shopping every week! I swear to god, the child likes airplanes, so instead of buying him one or two to play with, this guy, a Wal-Mart customer type, has bought him several hundred, too many to count, they lie in a pile two feet high in his room. Sadly, the poorer Americans seem to get, the more shit they buy their kids.
Question, when the kid is 30 will he remember toy airplanes, or pulling trout out of a tiny forest stream, after a 2 mile hike in?
If Burl "Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas" Ives were not already dead I would kill him.
He's right, America's economy is exhausted, sliding on a fast downward slope one can't see a way out of.
But then, I quote, "I suppose the obese masses buy this crap in anticipation of Halloween, tell themselves they’ll only take one, and then shovel the entire bag down their gullets". Does he have to be that hateful and contemptuous? It seems to me the last thing this country needs is even more hate, fear and rejection of others.
Quinn is from the Phila suburbs. He travels thru shit hole Phila and surrounding counties making observations of the present and past. He is right for most part,as that shit hole among many thru out country is a representation of now and Forward. My former stomping grounds.
Good stuff Mr. Quinn, spelled out pretty clearly.
That second to last chart contrasting median income with the FED balance sheet and the equities ramp is perfect.
I imagine a chart contrasting the health of an individual infested with tapeworms would be similar.
Tapeworms doing great, patient dying.
No point in shopping at Walmart. ...no 22 LR ammo.
Plenty of .22 online.www.gunbot.net
I had this experience last weekend. Was looking for gardening supplies to get beds ready. Their place had been replaced by Christmas lights. But now thinking about it...Halloween costumes have been >50% off for the past month and Halloween candy has been out for two months.
I try to just shop small retail stores. They may be more expensive but the staff is more knowledable and helpful. I'll pay more for a good experience and I think more people are leaning this way.
Kmart had a non-Christmas advertisement 10 days after Labor Day.
Next year, the sales will begin BEFORE summer ends, BEFORE Labor Day.
Now wasn't that an ulifting blog! I would have to question anyone who stll goes to Walmart. I used to buy my coffee there and the "Sam's Best" was top drawer, label looked so good I could have sit down in the isle and had a cup right there. Always bought 1/2 dozen, 2 1/2 lbs cans and was a good cup. Last time I went there, about 5 years ago I was looking to buy another 6 or so and all I saw were these products with a stark white label that said "Great Value" Swore I was shopping in China and have never went back again. A tip is never exchange your propane tank as they only fill them to about 80%, have to give less you know. Take them to your local travel trailer place and they fill them to the max and it cost a lot less. I keep 9 around all the time (prepper ya know). Check around your area for a place that refills your own tank.
Christmas has been banned for years.
It's all Kwanzaa now!
USA has the MOST DISGUSTINGLY REVOLTING commercialized "holidays", ie culturally-mandated retail buying events, of any country. Ironically the overwhelming majority of the money spent goes to China, cuz that's where almost everything is made now - HA !
'Tis true, they try to sell grass seed while there is still a foot of snow on the ground. But even worse, they stop CARRYING merchandise before the season is completely done. If you need a snow shovel in March, good luck. Totally backwards.