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How Many More Recession Confirmations Do You Need?
Submitted by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,
Despite the bogus BLS employment report last week (so the Fed could raise rates before the next financial crisis hits), all economic data confirms an economic recession. Corporate profits are falling, and their forecasts for next quarter are worse. Global trade is slowing dramatically.
Oil prices and other commodities are plummeting to multi-year lows. Manufacturing and Services surveys are flashing red.
China, Japan and European economies continue to suck wind. Layoff announcements by major corporations are up 40% over last year.
A global deflationary recession is underway. Only a CNBC bimbo, shill or Ivy League educated economist isn’t bright enough to see it.
Retail sales came out Friday morning and they were worse than dreadful. They confirmed the horrific quarterly reports from Macy’s, Nordstrom’s, and Kohl’s.
Total retail sales grew a minuscule 0.1% from September and only 1.7% versus last year. It’s even worse than it looks. When you back out the subprime auto loan spurred auto sales (long term rentals), retail sales grew only 0.5% over last year. That is far less than true inflation, so on a real basis retail sales are FALLING like a rock. This only happens during recessions. And it isn’t a one month thing. Retail sales, even including loan boosted auto sales, are flat over the last three months and up only 2.1% for the first 10 months of the year.

The decline in gasoline sales due to plunging prices has contributed to the lousy retail sales numbers, but the storyline of the economic bulls was how this was going to boost the spending of consumers across the board. That storyline is as dead as an Obamacare patient. It seems all the gasoline savings immediately went to pay for the soaring cost of Obamacare, even though the BLS says there is no healthcare inflation. There are a few areas that jump out at me and paint an even darker picture:
- Three of the strongest retail sales categories over the last year were auto sales, furniture sales, and building materials, with growth of 6.2%, 5.2%, and 4.3% respectively. The main reason these three areas have been relatively strong is because you don’t need cash, a minimal level of income, or even a job to make a purchase at these retailers. All you need is for the finance company employed by the retailer to approve you for a loan. The 7 year 0% auto loans go to those with decent credit. The subprime loans go to anyone that can fog a mirror. Every furniture retailer is offering 5 years with no interest payments for their Veterans Day sales. Lowes and Home Depot offer no interest for 12 or 24 months for any purchase over $500. It’s the Fed’s easy money 0% interest scheme that is producing this fake strength. The people “buying” those cars, sofas, and washing machines don’t have the money and when the bill comes due, the losses will be epic.
- The powers that be should really start worrying after seeing the auto sales crash, despite huge incentives being offered by the desperate car dealers, along with the easy credit. It seems they may have saturated the market by giving away brand new cars to anyone with a pulse. At least the Repo companies will be booming over the next few years and used car prices should crash.
- Another strong area has been restaurants and bars, with 5.5% year over year growth in October. This is significantly lower than the growth earlier in the year, but it is still decent. I believe this is the area that will be the last to crash. Older people are drowning their sorrows at bars. Young people, living with their parents, can’t afford houses, rent, or vehicles, but socializing with their friends using a credit card is still possible. Life has become so miserable for so many people, the only enjoyment they can find is going out to a restaurant or bar.
- The last strong area is internet retail, with a 7.1% growth over last year. Despite state governments doing their best to crush internet retailers by adding sales tax to most transactions, consumers are staying away from malls in droves. Who would possibly want to drive miles to a crowded decaying mall, venture into a Sears, Kmart, or JC Penneys and deal with the low IQ drone employees, find out what you wanted is out of stock, or pay more than you would on-line? Amazon and the rest of the on-line retail establishment will continue to destroy bricks and mortar retailers.
- Besides gas stations, only department stores and electronics stores have negative YTD sales after 10 months. The downward death spiral of Sears, Penney, Macys, Best Buy and many lesser retailers will not reverse. Their real estate is old, decrepit, and antiquated. After this Christmas season there will be announcements of hundreds of store closings, as ghost malls spook our suburban sprawl landscape.
Lastly, one final chart to show even the most brainless twit on CNBC that we are presently in a recession, despite the rhetoric and propaganda being spewed by the dying legacy media. Look closely at where retail sales peaked and began to fall. Quantitative easing stopped on October 29, 2014. Shockingly, retail sales began falling and haven’t stopped. The trillions of fiat printed since 2008 has solved nothing.

Doctor Bernanke and doctor Yellen injected a massive dose of adrenaline into a patient with cancer. The patient showed the appearance of recovery...
but the cancer has metastasized and spread through the entire system.
Competent doctors would have cut the cancer out by allowing bankrupt banks to liquidate and purging the system of cancerous debt. Instead they took steps to promote the proliferation and spread of the cancerous debt. Now the patient is terminal.
If it looks like a recession, walks like a recession and quacks like a recession, it’s a recession.
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Oh come on... I just watched CNBC and CNN and they said all is dandy
I think it's time for depression this time.
CTRL will save us.
Consumer costs dealing with small business are through the roof.
I may consider pharmaceutical relief.
Naw, beer me.
I'm waiting on that short little fuck Lavornga to confirm we are NOT in a recession before I call it a recession.
You know, like 2008.
Economy is not a recession - it is just resting quietly.
and I am glad to hear from Obama that ISIS is under control...or something like that...
& even better - he doesn't think isis has an operational capability in us! yet oddly my neighbor (who works local sporting goods store) told me they did 3x normal sat sales in gun dept yesterday...
CCW FTW
PPT room has no windows
It's a recession, but the rentier-socialist, private (bankster-owned) central bankster-planned eCONomy cannot ever concede that a recession has occurred under their self-superior "management" of the eCONomy.
That is, recessions and bear markets do not occur as a consequence of the natural order; they only manifest from "exogenous shocks" that cannot be anticipated because recessions don't occur in centrally planned eCONomies.
We are in The Village. Nothing is as it appears (or as it appears that it is not). Whose side are you on? Which side is which? Are there really two or more sides?
Red pills are very costly and only the elites and managers and facilitators of The Village can afford red pills in order to know just how deep the rabbit hole goes and how extensive it is.
Much obliged. Be seeing you . . .
Yea another Prisoner fan!
Who is number one?
Christ Jesus is number one and His sacrifice sets you free from the prison of your mind.
The Prisoner was a religious series and had deep undertones of Christiani Gnostic philosophy. The truth is that which sets you free.
The deceptions of "The Village" represent the World in which we live. Thus, in the World, we are in bondage.
So who is Number One?
In 2008 they needed time to make sure they could put themselves in a position to avoid the sinking ship.
Job accomplishede accomplished now it is time to let this play out move ... brutal.
The U.S. has never gotten out of the Great Recession, it's just becoming worse.
It's different then 2008 this time.
A shitload of companies started to expand their product lines horizontally and increased their online sales with price cuts to lure the customers.
China now has massive warehouses in Europe and America to supply their own online channels and is selling taxfree directly to it's customers.
I buy at these stores and the labels says "ROTTERDAM" and the rest is written in chinese. So hose warehouse must be in the port directly from the ships. And how they manage it to do it taxfree beats the shit out of me.
Our entire supply chain is so rotten to the core that we're having a oversupply of more then 40% and we've created a price level on products where it's impossible to have a corporate human structure with it.
It's different with 2008 because now the low paying jobs will be destroyed and will never come back.
We're losing the entire retail sector as a contributor of jobs, the service sector has been gutted already and will also go down with the ship.
No war, no destruction can fix this.
"Efficiency" will make sure that we'll see a increase of 20% in unemployment in he next 2 years and there's no sector in our economy who can deal with that.
And the rest of the supply lines? The boxmovers? They are already heavely automated and will just automate even more and he hubs will just become bigger and more efficient.
It's a scary tought to think for what comes next.
In short, Agenda 21.
recession-depression semantics kinda pregnant cheques in the mail i bet oil drops 3 bucks tomorrow
these articles are depressing. can we seen an article about the cost of oral sex in each of the 50 states?
Crackheads charge about 10.00 and those are with teeth. The sexy normal ones are about 50.00-80.00 here in Mexas.
do you think they care what the charts show, or how bad it actually is. they will continue debaseing the currency in another qe, and another qe etc. etc. for years and years until all the currencies in the g-20 collapse. so get ready to tighten your belt notch by notch until you are no more. sorry to be a downer but thats what i see........
To get final meaningful numbers, they not only need to compensate for actual inflation (about 8%), but also for actual population growth.
DEPRESSION... DEPRESSION... DEPRESSION.
Look out below.
That storyline is as dead as an Obamacare patient...
lulz lulz lulz
The fact that there are super tankers lined up in the gulf from shore to horrizon should be your sign right there that the economic engine is reving down.
As expected, and by design. China is contained. Europe ca3trated through Russian sanctions and immigrant funding plus being the financial lifeline to the bottomless barrel Ukraine. Surely nobody believed that hits on China, Europe, and Russia at the same time would have no effect in the US? Hello?! Who championed globalisation? Now don't complain when the global 'influences' you have engineered give you the flip-side.
How long and how many recessions can you fit into a Depression?
France's Economy has been in particular turmoil for years and this recent kabuki ain't gonna keep the tourists flooding in.
With their streets on lockdown and a sniper on every roof one can only imagine the ordinary Frenchman's dreams & longings of a return to WW11 times of surrender.
Or the Cold War years. At least Stalin only abducted the individuals he took revenge on (Kutepov, Miller) from Paris streets. How civilised it all seems now that we experience all THIS.
it's Zeno's Recession
Even the Panhandlers can't afford new SUV's anymore.
Hey man, everything is kooooool. I ain't rubbing lipstick on my arsehole and sellin' it on the street corner (yet).
Depression and getting worse.
At least most of us have been expecting it.
The bottom half of the SP needs to crash some more while AMZN, FB, DIS, GIL, APPL, GOOG climb another 50%.