This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
After Abysmal Thanksgiving Spending, Cyber Monday Is Latest Dud, Rising Less Than Half 2013 Pace
Prepare to hear much more of the "retail spending slowed down because the economy is just too strong" excuses today, used most hilariously by the NRF on Sunday to explain the unprecedented 11% collapse in the 2014 4-day holiday weekend spend, when pundits "justify" why Cyber Monday sales were only the latest proof the US consumer - that 70% driver of US GDP - is being crushed day after day, pardon, basking in the warm glow of America's centrally-planned golden age.
Here are the facts: Internet holiday shopping rose only 8.1% on Cyber Monday yesterday, usually the busiest day for Web shopping as people return to their desks after the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday weekend. This was a big miss to expectations, and is less than half then growth posted just last year, when online sales grew at 17.5%, according to IBM.
Enter the spin doctors:
... Cyber Monday sales growth is slowing as consumers embrace the convenience of online shopping, spreading out their purchases instead of being lured by one-day specials.
... The declining pace of growth reflects an earlier start to the year-end shopping season, with Amazon.com Inc. and other online retailers offering online deals a week before Black Friday, when stores traditionally began offering holiday discounts.
... “We’re still getting really strong growth on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but people are realizing it’s a season of shopping,” Soren Mills, chief marketing officer at Newegg Inc., an online electronics retailer. “We’re releasing new deals all the time. We refresh constantly and bring in new deals to keep the excitement there. People are turning it from a day-long occasion to a monthlong occasion.”
... “Consumers are definitely shopping earlier,” said Scot Wingo, ChannelAdvisor’s chief executive officer. “Thanksgiving eats into Black Friday, and Saturday and Sunday are eating into Cyber Monday.”
But nothing compares to:
NRF's CEO Matt Shay attributed the drop to a combination of factors, including the fact that retailers moved promotions earlier this year in attempt to get people out sooner and avoid what happened last year when people didn’t finish their shopping because of bad weather. He also attributed the declines to better online offerings and an improving economy where “people don’t feel the same psychological need to rush out and get the great deal that weekend, particularly if they expected to be more deals,” he said.
Yes, consumer spending is plunging due to a stronger economy. Clearly this guy went to Princeton.
All of which is not only funny, but an outright lie as well, because as reported previously, when aggregating all the Thanksgiving spending data from Thursday to Sunday, we find that shoppers spent an average $159.55 online, down 10.2% from $177.67 last year. This took place as there was an actual decline in the percentage of Black Friday weekend shopping taking place online. So not only did Americans buy less online, they spent less online!
Which is why, of course, one needs spin. The problem is when people no longer buy, pardon the pun, the bullshit:
This year, many shoppers stayed home. The NRF had predicted that 140.1 million customers would visit retailers last weekend. Instead, only 133.7 million showed up. The slow start may make it harder for retailers to hit sales targets over the next month. The NRF had predicted a 4.1 percent sales gain for November and December -- the best performance since 2011.
And it may still get it... if all retailers go "full Amazon" and liquidate their wares well below cost, leading to another wave of retail bankruptcies and even more evil, evil deflation.
»
- 17331 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
So, the economy is struggling, thus sales are off, the economy is doing well, thus sales are off, the weather is nice, thus people go outside and sales are off, the weather is shit, thus people stay home and sales are off.
Hilarious!
Beautifully and eloquently stated!
DavidC
Fergison promised, and they delivered.
Walmart shopper uses in store scooter to shoplift, then tries to make a getaway using his walker, but not before brandishing a knife at store security.
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/man-allegedly-shoplifting-scooter-g...
damn lake effect snow...it's because those people in Buffalo got snowed in. Everyone knows they're the biggest spenders and the leading indicators of a successfull "Buy cheap, stupid shit from China and go into further debt" holiday season.
Feds: If you don't buy more shit, we will take away your computers and smartphones
Hhhaaaaaa
Rose "only" 8.1% is considered a "dud". Ok bears, whatever you say, lol.
I know there's math wizes on this site so they should be familiar with this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_function
There was exponential growth on Cyber Monday traffic in the mid to late 2000s decade. Here we are in 2014, and the growth is starting to reach its saturation level. I don't understand how you can be a bear on that. That's like being bearish on only 91% of Americans own a mobile phone, so we don't see the "growth" in subscriptions we had in the good ol' days of the early 1990s.
Keep stacking your falling knife gold prices and staring at your expired cans of beans left over from Y2K so you can "ride this storm". You guys crack me up.
You are a pussy, that's why you are already cracked up...
"growth is starting to reach its saturation level"
Sorry, but how do you know we have saturated online sales? We still have brick and mortar stores in business, so there is more market-share to take right there, plus millions more people could get smart phones if not computers and become online shoppers. This may be the most ignorant statement in these comments.
That said, it is unclear at this point what the real totals will be. Black Friday can be down but the holiday season sales can still end much higher. Or not. Some online retailers tout bigger than 8% gains for 'Cyber Monday', and we won't have real numbers until January.
But, I don't think it is going to be as robust a season as the recovery-monkeys believe. There is no way we can have months of falling full-time employment and have robust holiday sales.
Out here in CA our local big brand grocery store is having Chicken Tuesday today. Discounting all chicken stuff. Whole chickens, chicken parts, mixed parts, bags of legs, thighs, breasts or wings, prepared chicken baked, broiled, steamed and fried, Whole, diced, sliced, pureed, skin or no skin. Humongous bags of chicken skin or chicken fat.
They're even going to have live chicken auctions and games for the kiddies including Choke yer Chicken.
Gonna be a fun day.
But unfortunately it's raining so nobody'll show. And because nobody shows it won't get any press coverage, so you won't hear about it again.
Except that Chicken Tuesday in CA was a wash-out
Except the pervs playing Choke yer Chicken in the parking lot. Those guy's'll make the Sheriffs report column in the local paper.
Knucks, will Clucky The Chicken be there to sign autographs and for selfies?
https://screen.yahoo.com/snl-ads-skits/cluckin-chicken-000000034.html
To the progressive mind, children are never too young to be indoctrin, er, nudged into becoming full-fledged sexual beings. Innocence is not merely dangerous, it is deadly! Choke Yer Chicken, hey, it's fun for the girls too!
I'd rather a boy play with his dick at an early age and learn how to use it correctly, than to have him play with a gun at an early age and learn to use it incorrectly. Which is, to use it at all.
I learned to use a gun when I was five years old. I had my own .22 in my bedroom when I was eight, with ammo when I was 11. Never had an incident nor an accident. Stop projecting your stupidity and ineptitude on others.
I hope your scissors and desk for cowering are always close by.
You really are a douche.
what actually sold on BF ? I have two friends who sell thingies online; one's a book seller form way back an dother one sells i-things. The book seller sold exactly zero books on BF while the i-thingy guy sold about the same as last year with no increase sales desptie his own cost of goods rose sharply.
I thought the zero book sales sort of confirms Gruber's comments about Merikans.
There. I fixed it for ya!
"This is my rifle, this is my gun. This is for fighting, this is for fun."
Tsar,
I really don't understand why so many women find guns so unattractive. You should take up target shooting. It may change your mind.
The other day I was in a horrible mood after a crappy day at work. My husband suggested we go to the range. Practically dragged me there I was so pissed off, convinced it would help. Sure enough, after going through a box of .40 shooting my favorite zombie target, I felt great!
There is something about the power of a gun and the necessity to focus on your target just clears your mind. Very cathartic. Then he took me to my favorite Thai restaurant, after that we had rum toddys by the fire and then.... well we had even a better evening I would not have thought possible just a few hours previously. All because of guns. Just imagine what they could do for you.
Miffed
Whoa: starting my day off with a laugh. Thanks man, needed that.
I was in a grocery store once where an obese woman in a muumuu crotched a turkey and tried to get it out to her car. Unfortunately, it melted a bit too much, became too slippery and she dropped it. We all stared at it as it skidded down the floor. I would have loved to had seen the store video how she did it. I guess I lack the obesity and inventiveness to survive in the modern world.
Miffed
I REALLY didn't need that visual.... :-)
Why spend when you can loot?
Pants up! Don't Loot!
Correct. I've been taking notes all year. And this exactly what they have said. I'm not sure what it is Yet, but something doesn't seem quite right.
What do you mean it doesn't seem quite right? The plan to crush the middle class is working perfectly. If anything, it's not going fast enough for the central planners tastes.
Id say its moving fast enough. If you want to keep the frogs in the pot, you gotta turn the heat up slow, not all at once. Can't have the proles getting all restless and revolution-y...
As long as the EBT cards work everything is great...
Could it be that the sales this year were shit compared to last year? Nah that couldn't be it...
The 'sales' I saw this year were like free shipping or prices that were barely different from the normal prices. Even gun related stuff this year was for shit where last year they were giving things away. I spent $71 this year on a new scope mount that was discounted by a whole $7 and only bought it because I wanted it, not because of the sale. Fail sales fail.
Plus with the middle class crunch, people are getting better at stacking coupons and tracking deals. Using sites like slickdeals and camelcamelcamel are very helpful at finding rock bottom prices. I noticed that apart from the "doorbuster" limited quantity items, the other black friday sales weren't that impressive.
Speaking of camelcamelcamel, if used properly you will never buy anything above rock bottom price if you have patience. You set the price you want to buy based on historic prices, and when that price hits you get emailed letting you know.
Also, why are sales lower because they shop online? They're still shopping; it's just online.
We need more Fergusons and white people beaten to death with hammers to put people in the shopping spirit.
Thank a liberal, Democrat or progressive who voted for this.
Who in his/her right mind expected something better after 29 hour/week jobs?
Richest country in the world.....it's just that no one that lives there can afford anything.
We are not even in the Team photo for the richest country in the world anymore unless you are talking about the .1 percent..... The average american is certainly no better off than your average Eastern block.
I guess it's an average world after all, what were those grade A failures thinking when they tried to financialize the economy? Oh yea, they wer'nt.
With that in mind, I'm suprised it "rose only 8.1%" instead of decreased by 8.1%
Agreed. I'm making the same salary now that I was 6 years ago and my expenses are up by 25% at least since then. I've had exactly one raise in 6 years and it was immediately eaten alive by medical insurance premium increases. Say nothing for food and fuel prices (until recently). Food is killing us though.
My raise last year was the extra money my company spent on health insurance. Thanks Obama.
The last raise before that was 2% in a year that came in with 3% official inflation for the year. Yay?
damn right. 80% of Americans made less than the average person in Slavakia way back in 2010, and it's only been downhill from there.
Gas is simply too cheap for me to drive around to all the stores and malls.
As the CDC chief Freeden might say, “It’s paradoxical !”
When 3/4ths of those who still have paying jobs make less than $50k per year, and in an environment of ZIRP, mandatory robbery (i mean health insurance), and inflation, how are people making less than $50k per year supposed to support a consumer economcy.
It's all bollocks.
Why do people choose to stay in jobs that pay less than 50K? Bush told everyone to open a corporation. Shame on those who didn’t listen.
‘Jack Ma’ made it out from the sub 50K lifestyle and any American can too. Sacrifice, yada, yada…
Refuse-resist, you need one of those 'High Yield' savings acocunts that pay a whopping 0.02%.
No doubt, Greenspan, Bernanke have destoyed the Middle Class with their policies that benefit the few.
A better question is 'how is a consumer economy supposed to be a good thing?'
What we are seeing is WHY a consumer economy is not a good thing. When you stop manufacturing, and the economy is supposed to be based on Home building or consumer spending, then you are just in a downhill slide to Spain, Portugal, France, Greece, etc.
Building homes is not a healthy economy. You might as well say that we have an economy based on building bridges to nowhere. Sure, a home has some value, but it is not a capital investment. It doesn't generate income. It's just a really big consumer spending item. At least it's made in the USA by 'Mericans... um, Central 'Mericans that is...
All the other consumer spending is money spent on items made outside the US. How is that an indicator of anything 'good'? Why does an American buying a Korean TV signal anything positive about the US economy? Especially if it is bought on credit? Or with money extracted from home-equity.
Hey now no name calling
Strange.
PM sales do not appear to be matching this down trend.
HHHmmmm.
PMs, and a 32 round magazine for my wife's Glock, .38 ammo, .22 ammo, 3 cords of seasoned wood.......
care to share where you found .22?
It's been plentiful at smaller gun shops lately.
Forget Big Box stores
Save your gas. www.gunbot.net Plenty of .22
Tyler, what about 2014 Thursday through Monday sales figure totals as compared to 2013? This way you capture it all. Thx.
#recovery
Yeah.....been hearing that for years now.
Started with green shoots......but the shoots haven't grown, even with billions in fertilizer.
2008 wasn't it?
The year the banks didn't want to take your money....but they did it for your own good.
If we want your money, we can keep your money
And.......it's gone!
This is should have been expected. More people not in work force, more people living on part time jobs, more people aware that they could lose their job tomorrow, real income fallen, people still with debt.....SO yeh...who has money to throw away.....
2014 spending hasn't slowed down...it's just being amortized over 3 years.
The credit card prolly maxed out, a study was done, and it proved true.
I am so much richer this year, that I find shopping causes sadness, that the extra $3.00 just won't buy much.beef is now outta reach for most, poor quality roasts are over $50.00, but one does not need to eat if you can text and post facebook photo's of how happy and rich we all are.
got a ccard ad, 9.95% if you miss a payment 18.8% for 6 months - with down size of billing the ccard co's save on labor and gosh if they loose your payment because of over worked clerks, you get to pay them 18.8% each and every month - hmmmm
A million bucks just don't go too far today.
A couple of minutes.....if they're really frugal about it.
Maybe people are turning away from the lifestyle of blatant consumerism that is shoved down their throats from youth as their American duty? Nah.
Personally I saved a whopping 100% on Black Friday by not buying anything.
I wasted money at the LGS and ran 200 rounds of 45 ACP through my new Sig Spartan (with my 15 yo son who was not sitting at home playing with his dick like Tsar Pointless)
Cut Interest rates to stimulate.........right Janet?
Only the rich get richer in the land of the free - the rest can just dream of riches:
As the New York Times summed it up in an editorial last month, “Since the recovery began in mid-2009, inflation-adjusted figures show that the economy has grown by 12 percent; corporate profits, by 46 percent; and the broad stock market, by 92 percent. Median household income has contracted by 3 percent.”
nyt's median income lower by 3%?? gotta laugh, and laugh..try 12 or 13% since 2009 and you might get close to the real drop. for some who lost jobs during our recovery are hit at 70% with ebt giving them 30% of old income.of course does not count the free phones sec 8 housing and whip food subsidy..3% drop my ass.
Not Hard to believe fact : 30% of the California population ( 11 million people ) are on the MediCal state subsidized health plan. Many more to come with immigration amnesty.
And every illegal alien goes on free subsidized BamyKare, gets section8 and EBT's, then they'll have all that money left over from not working to buy tons of 40s, 8balls, tats and Doritos
Long FritoLay
I hope I'm the first, but I doubt at the very least I'm the last to tell you you're wrong about something today.
"Immigrants eligible for protected status will not be permitted to join ObamaCare's health insurance exchanges or receive tax credits to buy medical coverage, despite some claims to the contrary."
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/225293-immigrants-eligible-for-bene...
Lucky them.
Riiiight. And I've got a nice bridge to sell you to go along with that.
"If you like your plan you can keep your plan . "
Of course the gimmigrants won't be eligible for Obamacare.
The people who employ them will realize the gains for their exemption from O-care.
pods
The fact that they are ineligible for O-care means they don't pay the 3000 penalty for not signing up, which makes them $3000 cheaper to hire.
It doesn't fucking matter whether that have Obama care or not. Ask an ER Doc who they treat on a daily basis. Illegals don't need no insurance. The ER is free.
you been eating stupid flakes for breakfast again??? All it takes is one illegal traitor in the white house to write an executive order and he adds first class healthcare to the poor children immigrants and of course, their families can't be left out in the cold.
With a fkin welfare pimp in the white-house it's free ride time for all niggers of any race.
Success!!!!
Think positive! How do I know this? ATTITUDE! According to experts when it comes to living successfully the most important word is attitude. Our attitudes will determine our destiny! PERIOD! If you want to be rich THINK RICH!
I think people are waiting until the last 3 days...then they will try to shiip it with Fed Ex or UPS...who will not be able to deliver it ontime....so then they can sue for damages..and voila...a free Christmas...for the FSA
I heard the same thing from my dealer, I hope he's not lying to me cause I'm runnin on empty.
Charge it!!!!
It isn't real money......
There is a positive to weak Cyber Monday activity & sales - all those workers were actually doing their jobs adding to the great productivity levels of this economy!
/s/
seriously, just look at the nature of the job gains over the last 11 months > part-time McJobs, Walmart greeters, waitresses and bartenders. Those newly employed don't sit on their butt getting paid by employers but performing personal shopping.
NoVa
Tons of added jobs in the dotcom distribution centers... Hard work low pay short term. I know of one where they currently have 850 employees only 120 of them are permanent, the rest are temps that will be laid off sometime in January. Great stuff isn't it? What will those people do after January?
Lots of overstock and surplus items. Walmart's liquidation auctions have 8 pallets $14,000.00 in retail value going for $2,000-$5,000.
Sounds like a good thing to most unemployed (who are without unemployment benefits due to insufficient work time through series of the temp jobs that now predominate in so many fields) when they finally get that next "longer term" temp job; even low pay, no benefits is better than nothing coming in but perhaps food stamps.
But then the poor bastards gotta buy health insurance if they make more than around $15k, because even if they're in a state with obolacare "expanded medicaid" they don't qualify.
I know a woman in that position who was surprised to find that obola was supplementing her lousy overpriced "marketplace" policy for $450 a month (single adult), leaving her with a $75 per month share of the premium. All based on income . . . last year's income, which was used to approximate what she would make this year in order to set her obolacare premium assistance level and her share of the premium.
Fortunately for her--she thought--her income was only about $16k last year, hence the "low" premium share she paid. Then things picked up a bit for her on the temp job circuit . . . working more often, making a few bucks more at the gigs she was assigned and now, finally looking back over the year, she finds that she made close to $23k for the year! No wonder it wasn't quite so hard as last year, even with the $75 monthly insurance payment plus the copays and deductibles, since having paid for the shit she made a point of using it for medical issues previously neglected. She even had a few bucks to eat out every couple months, buy a couple new outfits, and replace her old car with a new old car when the former one died. Not a bad year, all in all, she said.
Time to re-enroll for her obolacare just came around and she finds that, since she's become so flush over the past year--$23k!--her premium will now be $270 a month for the same basic policy that will now carry much higher copays and deductables. Back to poverty to just make the premium--if the temp things continue next year as they did this year--with no money left to use the insurance except in an emergency (ignore that an emergency like that would probably cause loss of job due to no sicktime benefit.)
THE BIG PROBLEM, though . . . Recalll that her premium assistance for the past year was conditioned on a $16k income estimate. She earned $7k more than that--even moved out of her parent's house to share an apartment! But that extra $7 k of income is gonna kill her in April. The IRS is going to carve out a new total for what she "should" have paid and hit her with a demand for the difference. She's freaking--how the fuck is she going to cough up $3,000-$4000 that she doesn't have to "pay back" the obolafund when she's going to be scraping pennies to make the new higher premiums?
She's gonna be totally screwed. And my guess is that ten million or so of those newly insured people are going to be similarly screwed because, let's face it, how many people plugged high estimates of the coming year's income into the formula rather than lowball figures required to have even a remotely realistic chance of paying the monthly premiums over the past year?
April 15 is gonna be a catastrophic day for a whole lot of obolacare beneficiaries. The bloodbath at the hands of the IRS will be Epic.
Fuck the IRS
Well, I keep getting these "Cyber Monday" and now, "Cyber Week" emails in my inbox from Lowe's, Grainger, Best Buy, Amazon, Home Depot, JCP, Sears, hell even some ammo reloading supply companies are sending me this stuff. Must be because of the fantastic recovering economy - they know my real income has gone up so much in the past decade that I have all this money to spend.
Nah. I look at it from a viewpoint tht they're......begging.
With corporations paying effective tax rate of 0%.
The taxpayer fills in the gap and has nothing left to spend.
Obamacare basically killed it.
I guess you don't realize that corporations pass 100% of the tax they pay on to their customers?
We should all wants 0% corporate tax rate, and we should all want lower individual tax rates.
Who has money to buy "Made in CHine" Crap that you do not even need
Fuck that I am not contributing to this "WALMART" economy
Tyler. You can't add up Cyber Monday sales just yet. I got 25 emails this morning saying Cyber Monday has Been EXTENDED. There is a good chance by Friday they will beat last year cyber Monday.
They stretched honika to 10 days so it could be law soon to help cook the books.
so now 8.1% increase is a negative? I'm just trying to be unbiased here but an 8.1% increase is better than a decrease is it not? It appears everyone wants to spin.
I can spin pizzas but for the good stuff, I would check in with Oriely at 7pm the foxy channel
Your spelling and grammar sucks big time.
+1 Best comment on this article thus far. Thank you.
Overall, if online spending is up 8%, and brick-and-mortar spending is down 11%, and online spending is 40% of the total, then:
(.4*1.08)+(.6*.89) = .966
Spending down 5.4%.
It's really simple.
There was an increase in online sales this year, assuming the reported figures are accurate (revisions, etc.), but the increase was far less than the increase in online sales last year as compared with online sales in 2012.
So, there was not a decline in online sales, but an increase.
*Again, this assumes the initial data being reported is factually, mathematically correct, but paint me skeptical - I've seen the season of downward revisions year after year, and the financial MSM is desperate to keep the economic "confidence" meme alive.
paz, context is important, 17 % vs 8%..but you knew that
Yes Over, I understand that. last year's growth was 17 % this years growth is 8% over last years 17% so it's not as good but it is still growth and certainly isn't Abysmal like the Black Friday negative 11% , that is all I'm pointing out.
paz sure, but we are taking wall st and .gov numbers, they never lie. my local economy never recovered from 08..but i hear san franciso is doing great. wall st banksters are doing just fine, silicon valley as well and of course washington dc. oil shale areas as well, but ave mainstreets are still negative, but we need 5 million more workers imported who are not yet aware they are slaves to be exploited - oh merry christmas .
I understand I know what you mean. I live in a rural area sometimes go into an area that seems to be very busy and affluent(Lake Norman Area near Charlotte) I don't go their often, but I still see a lot of homeless people around there.
It's not clear whether the 8% is over last year's 17%, or whether the sales increase is in comparison to the business day prior to Cyber Monday.
Here, I'll post it again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_function
For those of you who asked your Calculus professor, "When are we going to use this in the real world?" well here you go!
Hitting saturation level means this Cyber Monday marketing gimmick is still going strong. When it decreases, then it will be a "dud".
off topic: POSSIBLE False FLAG Attack COMING to EU
Islamists plan Christmas attacks on 5 planes in major European hubs – report:
http://rt.com/news/210491-christmas-terror-plane-islamists/
Clearly we need to send out a TSA expeditionary force, to cavity seach, xray scan, and basically treat every white passenger like shit.
That will make them safe. It works so well here, doesn't it? I mean no terrorist attacks since um, well.. Can we count false flags as terrorist attacks?
There are no attacks because the government doesn't need attacks right now. the moment they perceive a need to enact a new agenda, an attack will happen right on cue.
I heard an advert on the radio for Kohl's on my in to work. They are offering a 40-50% off sale this week, right after Black Friday. It's hitting the fan.
Retail was a dud. Sales were for false appearances, not attracting "consumers" or actually selling chink-shit. The favorite ploy,"Cyber-Monday, an exact repeat of black-Friday!" *crickets*
I went to a favorite online retailer and was only greeted with a difference in spelling with zero price action. Think I bought anything??
Hell no.
I didn't buy shit. Or anything else for that matter.
Anyone ever heard of a SNAP DEPRESSION? It's coming. It happens when several themes collide. No savings to fall back on. No need for stuff anymore. No hope for the future. 80% of the economy is bullshit. Not needed.
Walmart just announced they had their biggest cyber Monday ever.
Channel Advisor says cyber Monday sales were up 15.6% over last year.
Looks like indeed most people shifted their Christmas shopping to the Internet and year-end sales are going to be up.
The problem with Zero Hedge is that they spin everything negatively.
So everyone spins and we can never know the truth.
Right, because making the sign bigger is all that matters.
Talk about spin, the only thing Walmart measured is record EBT being replenished - the sound of your money going overseas. The same trick, and you fall for it every year.
Don't stop -- believing!
Hey, I hate Walmart as much as anyone here. But facts are facts. They just had their biggest Cyber Monday ever, so it challenges this assumption that the consumer is tapped out.
Is it such a crime to ask for real information without any spin?
I know it's all fake (people getting into debt or using EBT to buy plastic crap they don't need), but in the end for Walmart it means sales are up.
That's all I'm saying.
In baseball..we call that a balk.
+1
No the spin around here is invest in PMs that rose "only" -70%. Yes NEGATIVE 70% since their 2011 peak.
I'm sorry guys, the investment strategies around here are simpily foolish. I know I'll lose the high school popularity contest with your downvotes, but this is what is going on.
I'm sorry to burst your bubble. Ha ha ha pun intended!
Sales of ChinaMart are up! The economy is positively thriving!!!!!!-
blaireauhedge
Cyber Walmart? WTF, so they doubled the $50 they made last year. Party on Garth.
No worries. Tomorrow is Waste-Money-Wednesday!
Surely the shoppers will show up for that.
Don't fret over poor sales. We have the usual suspects.
It's the weather....
It's the riots...
It's the ( you pick )...
.... bad economy?
.... to much debt already?
..... stagnant wages and rising inflation?
...... I'm not spending $40 on a checkered long sleeve shirt. Go screw.
....... Christmas is for Christians. Retailers can go F themselves.
It's the horrible prices (for me). I don't see any good deals on things I'd actually want. I'm not paying $200 for jeans, $400 for boots, $150 for dress shirts for work, etc., even if they mark them down 65% they're still overpriced.
Oakland lost 52-0 by STL, of all teams, so Raiders merchandise isn't moving at all.
Then again, not so sure it was before.
So, spending is a "DUD"; people are broke; the government is bankrupt. This can only mean one thing; new all-time highs in the SP500 and the Dow 30. Am I the only one who sees this?
www.traderzoo.mobi
Didn’t you watch the news this morning? Cyber Monday has magically been extended by the MSM. It’s Cyber Week now. This will no doubt be followed by a New Year’s month sale starting Jan 1, 2015, when all the holiday temp help that gets fired will finally have the time and opportunity to buy the shit that no one else wanted.
Black friday weekend was a disaster. Why would Cyber Monday be any different?
http://www.globaldeflationnews.com/black-friday-weekend-spending-a-disas...
I went to a local discount store on Sunday. Bought two long-sleeved shirts, one for work and one for play, for just $15. Didn't have to swim through a sea of idiots just to get the few things I wanted and needed.
On Friday, we went shopping, but it was just for routine stuff, in the afternoon. Stores were busy, but in no way insane. Even my other half noted the lack of massive crowds of sheeple.
Sure, it's anecdotal evidence, but I'll bet my story can be reiterated by millions around the country. "It was busy, just not packed".
Your anecdote is confirmed here in Austin, and for fun I drove to a few malls in well-to-do areas. Black Friday was almost as dead as usual.
"If you want your Black Friday Shopping money, you can keep your Black Friday Shopping money!"
Hit 5 web sites yesterday - no real sales over any other day - tossed a few things in a cart but when I 'viewed cart' pretty much said 'meh' and closed the browser. Made only one purchase - one of those 'necessities' the WSJ headline talked about - I ordered some AR-15 magazines because there was a free shipping coupon. Can't have 'too many' of those!
7 Million Obama Care sign ups vs 6.4 Million reduction in shoppers...wonder who's not shopping anymore?
What we need is an ObamaCaristmas Mandate compelling everyone to spend money on whatever bullshit the Commerce Dept says or you pay a tax, I mean a penalty, I mean a tax.
How does that old adage go - “The greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing sheeple that Black Friday actually exists” (or something like that).
The sheeple are so stupid they need to told and directed to spend their money. Maybe the decline in black Friday sales is a indication that they are waking up. Or,,, their just too stupid to remember that's its black Friday and how to click a mouse. I'm going with the latter.
OR we no longer have disposable income!
it's the Brawndo kicking in.
All of sudden, the company where my friend used to work laid off all seventy-three middle-level guys who made $150K and above right before Thanksgiving. The security guards escorted them out on a Friday afternoon. The company is a multinational corp that has been very profitable (hint: Goldman is a major shareholder) for the past twenty-eight years with annual double-digit net income growth. One of the guys got let go had worked there three days short of forty years.
Goldman and it's investment firms push overseas outsourcing big time to maximize profits.
Do you think Goldman is in it to protect the US?
The US military is used as a tool to protect the Goldman interests. Goldman's main object is to stay the financial leader of the world.
Morgan Stantly laid off a bunch mid-level management right before Thanksgiving too. Most had more than 15 years. But none of it matter, stock markets are up regardless of the abysmal numbers.
They called those poor guys to a big conference room during the lunch break and someone changed their computer passwords at the same time. A big shot on site delivered the bad news via webcam. They were told their personal belongings would be packed and shipped to them in the following week, and then they were escorted out of the gate. No severance package, no nothing. Very typical Corporate America treatment.
Did they bring "the Bobs" in to break the news?
h/t Office Space
Spend less, Screw more... and why not?...
I got 2000 rounds of .22 ammo at Field and Stream on Thanksgiving - and at a discount price. That's all I needed.
I ejaculated twice on Thanksgiving. That turned out to be all I needed.
You really are pointless.
Did your bear boyfriend ask for a third and you couldn't produce?
Hopefully you pointed it at the ground and were outdoors-we all know how you feel about loaded guns in the house. Heaven forbid you SHOULD shoot yourself in the eye, or anything...
you turkey