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Guest Post: What's Your Favorite "On the Ground" Recession Indicator?
Submitted by Charles High Smith from Of Two Minds
What's Your Favorite "On the Ground" Recession Indicator?
Beautifully maintained trophy cars are being dumped for cash. What does that say about the "real" economy?
Everybody has their own "on the ground" recession indicators: the mall parking lot, the tony restaurant that used to be packed every weekend, and so on.
I have two favorites: freight trains rumbling south down the main line of the West Coast and "sell your own car" used car lots.
The freight trains are self-explanatory: at the top of the housing bubble, they were loaded with flatcars of lumber. Now? A lot of empty flatcars and container flats. A lot. Yes, the official statistics indicate rising rail traffic, but they must mean one more car has a load in a 100-car train and there's only 20 empties. The freight trains I see are still running with beaucoup empty cars.
There may be some explanation of why this is so, but I can report that these trains pulled no empties in 2007.
"Sell your own car" lots reflect the "private market" for used cars. If you want to know what people are trading in for new cars, then go look at new car dealers' used lots. At the local Honda dealer, I saw a number of Lexus SUVs on their used lot; people trading down to save on gasoline?
I've sold a few cars myself at the local "sell your own car" lot, so I know it's reputable and a model that works for buyers and sellers. For a flat fee, you park your car on their lot and price it however you want. Potential buyers get to test-drive it, take it to their mechanic, etc. It's a big lot, so the selection of cars and prices is suggestive of larger trends--at least to me.
Back in 2009 at the initial depths of the recession, the used Toyotas and Hondas vanished and the lot filled with Volvos and other big-car-payment brands. I took this to reflect people were ditching their car payments and snapping up older reliable cars they could buy for cash and get another 100,000 miles out of.
I hadn't been by the lot in a while and what I saw astonished me. The lot was packed with "fun" cars and luxury brands: four recent-vintage Cooper-Minis were lined up (none sold in the week I monitored the lot). A cute yellow VW Beetle--another "fun" car-- was over by the Mercedes. Yes, Mercedes, and Porsches, all beautfully maintained.
For the first time in the two decades I've scanned this lot, it was chockful of luxury cars: a pristine black 2002 Porsche Boxter with low mileage that raised my blood pressure and sorely tempted me because it was "priced to sell"--and for a Scots-Irish-French tightwad, that's saying something; an equally beautiful Mercedes 500-series two seater, low mileage, brand-new in appearance; a fairly decent Jaguar; another pristine 300-series Mercedes, a classic, unbelievably well-maintained Porsche 911 (1991)-- the list goes on.
In the good old days, these "still look new" luxury cars would have been snapped up at these prices. But now they sit here, unsold, day after day.
Another class of "fun" car was also represented--the muscle car: a very clean recent vintage red Trans Am attracted onlookers in one corner of the lot.
Sellers can add comments to the sales tag, and on at least two of the luxury vehicles it was noted that the car had been their father's, one owner. Others indicated the original owner was selling.
If you know some car buffs, or you are one, then you know what these low-mileage super-clean luxury cars represent: they represent the lifetime achievement car for a guy, or the trophy car the rising exec takes out on the weekend. There is no other explanation for a 10-year old car to have 17,000 miles, or 33,000 miles--they were all garaged and enjoyed as a third or fourth car.
It seems Dad is getting too old to drive, or it's no longer feasible to ease into the low-slung Porsche, and so he's given it to one of his kids. And the kid drove it to the lot to turn into cold hard cash.
As for the "fun" cars: maybe they're still selling big numbers of new vehicles, but the glow of owning a mediocre-mileage car with no room for the dog or kids seems to be fading for existing owners. My sister-in-law spent a fortune having her Mini Cooper fixed last year, and our friend with a cutsy VW Beetle had a repair bill after a few years of ownership that could have bought a decent used car instead.
For whatever reason, "fun" cars that I never saw on the lot before are now there in abundance.
This is all anecdotal, of course, and wide open to interpretation. If you go to the techie-hipster favored neighborhoods in San Francisco, the tony cafes and restaurants are crowded: there's plenty of Web 2.0 money floating around. If you only look at these concentrations of talent and free-flowing investment capital, the economy looks like it's booming. Ditto if you try to book a table near the Opera on performance night: there's plenty of old money around that can spend $100 per dinner, too.
Once again, there were no older Toyotas or Hondas on the lot, only a few 2-year old models asking near-new prices. I interpret this thusly: older reliable cars that will last another five years without major expense are snapped up immediately, and superfluous "fun" cars and luxury trophy vehicles are being turned into cash.
When people are driving their pride and joy cars out of their pampered garages and selling them for cash, not trading them in for a new car or keeping them for pleasure, I think that's saying something about the "real" economy you won't find if you hang around Twitter HQ or the bejeweled Opera crowd.
You may intepret it differently, of course. That's the beauty of "on the ground" recession indicators.
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The Ceridian Index, for those not familiar with it, use Goog.
Latest numbers are alarming and run counter to the gov's propaganda reports....
When truckers are not buying diesel, things are not doing too well.
Wow, it's looking quite toppish to me:
http://www.ceridianindex.com/
I'm seeing bays in local strip centers go vacant and stay vacant, even where they are in desirable spots such as a high-visibility endcap practically abutting the heavily-trafficked major artery.
It was a mattress store, now it's as empty as the rest of the center (there are a couple of units still occupied, but I expect one of them to go vacant any minute since the business that provided its customers is already gone from the center).
I have seen a few things lease back up, but not in the slightest balancing out the closures.
Shopping our nearby KMart is like attending a pariah's funeral.
A Payless Shoe Store closed in a nearby Target plaza where it had a corner you could not avoid passing. We lost our Sweetbay supermarket location, the building where I have my office is now owned by the nearby community bank.
Our local non-Home Labyrinth hardware store is Bizzaro Store. I stop in after work around 6:30 and find that employees usually out number customers.
The local Zeppelin plant rental depot. I drive past it. The more CAT machinery out on hire the more energy being turned into work. Obviously seasonal but I only see one or two gaps in their ranks of kit at the moment.
Empty homes, with no realtor sign out front. More and more each month.
I live in a neigborhood that is very stable and was built over a 55 year period. It is only a couple of hundred houses, so it is easy to know which ones have sold lately.
Most of the houses that sold in the last 7 years have resold at least twice, usually under duress. It seems recent buyers without much equity are having problems holding on to properties.
I've seen 2 neighbors have their water turned off for nonpayment of bills in the last year. One of the houses is now abandonded/bank reo - after the grandparents died and the grandchild frittered away his inheiritance.
The world seems quite a bit more threadbare wherever I look.
Mall parking lots as recession indicator? I went to the mall this past weekend, and it took me an hour to find a parking spot. Then it took another hour just to try on a pair of running shoes, because the store was so packed. Finally, I decided to catch a movie, and every freaking seat in the theater was full at $11 per ticket. If the number of people in shopping malls is a recession indicator, then we're doing just fine!
This is subjecive depending where you are. Even in south florida, if you go to Naples now during snowbird season, it does not look too bad. However, drive a little inland where the normal middle class lives, it's terrible. Some places, like Lehigh, are literally almost abandoned.
I'm also in FL but further north -- we've noticed there are not nearly as many snowbirds in our area (which is far more rural than your area).
In town, the Goodwill was recently billed as a "name brand" department store -- well, at least one business is up.
In the past year, I can't recall seeing a single stacked up grocery cart. You can see that people are really watching their pennies.
I posted similar story earlier on this thread. What I noticed was the low number of people carring packages. Only 3 or 4 per hundred. The food court was fairly busy but most people were just hanging out and walking around.
Free heat or A/C, depending on where you live . . .
friend works men's haircut - $10 Wednesday $14 other days. People are putting off the $10 for 3 months just to save money. Most of the day they just wait for customers.
local barber shop does 10$ haircuts, if you climb in the chair between 8am and 11:30 am. most days he's sitting in the chair by the window reading the paper, when I drive by.
Already posted, but relevent here and worth seeing if you haven't.
Actually, I don't think this will ever stop being relevent. (Mr. Show sketch comedy lays out the difference between money and value)
Mine is the village idiot who sits across from me at work, who is still claiming that Manhattan is an island. His theory is that since the state fair is busy the economy is good. I hold the opposite view, State Fair attendance we actually climb as the broader economy weakens as it is a cheap form of entertainment.
Mine is the village idiot who sits across from me at work, who is still claiming that Manhattan is an island. His theory is that since the state fair is busy the economy is good. I hold the opposite view, State Fair attendance we actually climb as the broader economy weakens as it is a cheap form of entertainment.
Have noticed a lot of former tradespeople working at the big box home improvement stores where for many years it seemed like there were a whole bunch of former "Would you like fries with that?" people.
months ago went to a McDonald's drive through late at night, the empolyee taking money and giving food was a middle aged (50 something) clean cut, very polite and well spoken man. Even the order was done correctly.
...and middle aged people working as Wal Mart greeters...
or a family member receiving their Bank of America State of NJ unemployment debit card in the mail before she even got the letter of DENIAL of benefits from the state unemployment office... wonder if Christie helped work that deal.
More and more closed shop windows in the downtown area where I live.
More and more cars in the Walmart supercenter.
http://www.thestreet.com/story/10515764/idaho-us-rails-clogged-with-cars...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1212013/Revealed-The-gho...
signs?
the Troika seeking to buy office space. staying for the long term.
going long slavery.
and, as for the beer, brew your own, or wine.
The home brew stores should be doing good business.
Mine is more of a "developing bubble" indicator. I am starting to get credit card offers for - 12 months no fee, zero interest, on balance transfers. So I now I don't pay interest. We did this back in 2004-2006. Paid off a car loan without paying interest. Every twelve (or 16 months) we just signed up for a new credit card and transferred the balance. Good for me, bad for banks (which should be out of business now, ie Citi)
Yeah but there is a 3% fee to transfer the balance.
Here is a list of mine,
Longer and longer lines at Christian Charities.
Price of narcotics staying the same but potency going up.
Local bar parking lot packed by 12:30 on a Wednesday.
More people waiting for public transportation than usual.
Used car repair and sales either up or stable. More cars being towed / abandon on the side of the street.
More people using plastic at the grociery store.
WallMart packed instead of the Mall parking lot.
Less garbage out on trash day.
People using more coupons than normal at stores.
Mc Donalds menu prices staying the same or going down, $1.00 menu.
More people walking or riding bikes.
The Scion / Toyota shipping port loaded with last year model cars.
UnEmployment classes getting larger every other week.
People look frightened and get angry faster.
Gun sales are up.
More house "For Rent" signs than For Sale. I have more, but that's enough.
The number of long time national politicians not running for reelection is up
the trains in my area used to carry tank cars,only cargo containers for last five years
the local big box retailer in my area that has been here the longest has gotten rid of ALL long term employees,the ones who knew what they were selling,doing,but made more than minimal wage due to years of service
my employer quit matching a % of 401K 3 years ago,used to say next year,makes no promises now
the # of homes for sale in my neighborhood.when I moved in 23 years ago,I was the only new owner in many years,now there are many for sale signs within blocks of my house {a good neighborhood} I will soon be the one that has been here the longest of all.my neighbors on either side of me are older,and are the only ones left that have been here longer than me.
the # of nice homes for sale that need yard mowing in my area
I could go on,but I just learned that Monkees singer Davey Jones died.time to fire up the vaporizer and relax
ONE MORE for the road,increasing # of INFOWARS bumper stickers on cars,BE ARAID,very afraid
Well, O'Blowme will shoot them first, giving the rest of us a chance to grab our stuff. If that dumb n***** thinks we are going to roll over, he'll be wrong.
Oh, also (and as mentioned by many others)
Shear amount of bums around the Chicago City Hall building in the Loop, and the amount begging along the river/wacker bridges. Even some outside of CME area
I'm a building designer near Seattle. Part of my business was designing the framing for High End houses as well as just regular houses. Used to get 5 or 6 houses per month back in 07, now it is 5 or 6 per year. I now get about one call a week from a new local client, vs ones I am doing their job. Thank the lord for my Navy work.
Bought a '04 Tahoe last Sept in killer shape, only paid 13K for it (what was left to pay on the loan) My credit union said it was worth 17K and financed the whole thing.
I think more than 10% of the restaurants in town closed last year. No one I know is optimistic
Bremerton? My mother is buried there and I have sworn every year since I drove her remains up I would go see how well the cemetery was keeping the grounds, Ivy Green Cemetery is a city run cemetery and I just fear they would suspend grounds maintenance because cities are so broke. I feel like a bad son because I can't afford the trip and have not gone since she died. Not even the gas so much as having to stay in a Motel that used to be $6 per night and is now $59.99 for the cheapest, and most remind me of crack houses these days. They also have shower heads that so restrict water flow they are really more like high humidity than a real shower.
But, that Tahoe sounds nice IF you can afford to fill it up at $4 and skyrocketing gas. What will you do when it hits six bucks a gallon?
Neighbor no longer has the maid come every Thursday. Daughter wont be driving a new car for birthday. She will be driving my 82 JEEP J-10 that we kept up at the ranch. The good news is it has a shotgun rack and the ignition is impervious to EMP. And it climbes like a mountain goat.
Another good sign : city employees being fired a year or two before retirement.
Down here in New Orleans things are hopping. It's a veritable boom town. That's because we were lucky enough to have a devastating natural disaster, which caused the Feds to pump a couple hundred billion dollars in here before the crash came. Unfortunately, when the next mega natural disaster hits the U.S., the funds won't be there to pump the place up. That's when I predict the S will really start hitting the F.
Totally agree with this. New Orleans is strong and so is Baton Rouge. The wait time for restaurants has been actually longer than usual. Now that lent is in season you better get to your favorite seafood place early on Fridays making the wait over a hour if you get there at 7pm.
Another thing to add is our malls have been packed, Union Pacific railroad is looking to hire around 400 people, new steel mill being built and will be hiring a lot of people, and a lot of the petro/chem plants are doing some expansion. I do talk to the contractors and most of them are from Michigan which I understand why.I work for the big energy company in Louisiana and we are even expanding to produce more megawatts.
Saw haircuts at a major chain advertised for $4.99.
Of course the Dollar Menu.
Sign spinners galore.
I am noticing more people on bikes, bike "trailers" more broken down cars on the side of the road never-mind the prices.
Its funny to see these 6 year old bling-SUVs with new trailer hitches pulling these scrap-ass trailers filled with half an apartment worth of broken down IKEA furniture drive from one eviction to another downsize.
Green shoots.
Yep, as a landlord when people need a place like tomorrow, you have to look out the window to see if they have their possessions in tow from an eviction just hours ago.
"Rub 'n Tug" on the house for new clients at Saigon Rosie's Oriental Massage on W 44th/12th.
Regular cost is $50+ (so I'm told).
I was told that the regular cost was more like $75, but it was from a notoriously unreliable source.
$75! Gulp!
Didn't you ask for the "Zero Hedge Bulk Discount"?
Make sure you get rid of the easy one first, stretch out that 50 buck's.
Be sure to let them know there's a big tip for a happy ending. Then tell them to go long muni bonds. everybody gets screwed that way.
Yard sales and flea markets.
You used to only see folks with a truckload of goods set up in an empty field near a crossroads, or strip mall parking lot on Saturdays and Sundays.
I see them nearly every day of the week in some places.
The bigger flea markets have fewer spaces designated for established vendors with wholesale clothing or cheap electronics, most of it here is household junk and used tools.
Local shops being replaced by pawn shops.
Sunken manhole covers and other road defects. This town had good streets till the crash in 2007 when they just stopped doing any real repairs. Now they do only the most critical repairs and patch the chunks they had to cut out to get to pipes and wires and sewers and such but they do a crap job of it and 6 months later there is a depressed trough that when you hit it at the 35 MPH speed limit is like driving over a curb at 60, enough to take your front suspension out completely. But, most of the major arterial streets in town last year were scheduled for resurfacing and the city claimed poverty so instead they hired a chip seal company to put down layers of sticky glop and dusty sandy chips. In places a couple or few inches too. They did a terrible job, wavy undulating surface and every manhole cover is now inches below the grade. And the chips are bullshit, every windshiled in Medford is frosted now because of it.
I seriously think they did it intentionally to force the voters to approve a big bond measure for repaving projects, you know, once your rims are bent and your paint sanded off you might agree to go the extra millage for a real repaving job.
Cry,Cry,Cry... enough already. All you people have to do is get your community to float a general obligation bond and build a sports stadium, convention center, high speed rail train, etc. Whoopee!
Happy days are here again the skies above are clear again
so let's sing a song of cheer again
happy days are here again!
They did something similar back before the crash here in Medford, they set up the Medford Urban Renewal Association (they were going to use medford urban renewal district till they realized that was MURD, too close to being a french word for shit) and MURA blew 30 or 40 million to have several blocks of blighted downtown torn down and in cooperation with Lithia Motors which was planning a new 11 story office building for it's corporate HQ they were going to put in pedestrian malls with outdoor restaurants, boutique type shopping, upscale parking and all sorts of high end refurbishment, the goal was a downtown people would want to go to. To build their new HQ Lithia needed all sorts of expensive infrastructure improvements so they spent the last several years tearing shit up, roads and new fiber optics, new gas lines and water lines.
Well, Lithia just barely avoided going tits up in the depression and lost a lot of their 126 dealerships, down to about 85 or so, and they scaled back their new HQ to four stories and got all the infrastructure free, no pedi malls or cute dining or even tearing down blighted businesses, it is a joke, it was a gift to a republican crony.
In the meanwhile there are estimated to be more than 1,500 teenaged kids in town that are homeless, private money finally got a shelter open last year with room for 20 of them. This country is building some really major bad karma.
<b>Traffic</b> - I watch and listen to the number of cars at all hours of the day. Traffic tells me that there is far fewer people driving around, especially at hours that use to be the time to go to work. Traffic has been down for 3 years or so, and its getting less and less.
<b>People waiting to get a Ride to Work</b> - They are gone for over 4 years now. I never see anyone waiting. A lot of people have gone back to their home countries, well over 2 years ago.
<b>Job Jumping</b> - I have a neighbor that has had over 7 jobs over the past 3 years. Now the partner has a full-time job at night, and keeps the small business going during the day.
Number of people selling guns for cash in the paper and local gun shops.
Homeless people living places that were never occupied here before: storage units, office dumpsters.....
In downtown Houston, where everything suppose to be great due to oil prices, there's a restaurant that closes every other week. At one particular location, a 360 degree scan around me revealed 6 restaurants that had closed in the past 6 months. The downtown revitalization is dead...done...and not happening. Of course, the City will chip in millions to paint over another block and make it look pretty, but they're out of money now too.
sad to hear all the heart break stories on the mainland. here on the big island things have been slow but the big adjustment is over. people have either moved in with family, moved to the mainland to be with family , moved back from the mainland to be with family. tourism is picking up again with a lot of canadians, australians, koreans and now mainland chinese, fewer mainlanders and slow for the year in japanese(tsumani related). residential construction is still off but it is a little less than than 2003 when the real estate boom really took off here. lots of .gov projects, though. .gov supports this island with a steady supply of money and the island is still adjusting to the crash of the sugar industry in the nineties which was much worse than now. real estate prices have dropped from their peak but have stabilized and are still higher than 2003. people are still moving here to retire. locals have always been frugal. showing off money has never been cool(mainlanders find out pretty quick they will get treated like shit if they try the mainland condescension, patronizing crap). the last few months, however, i noticed ken's reataurant has been slower than normal. it is usually a tough place to find parking and last friday night you could pull right into a choice of slots.
All around here, there are empty storefronts, slowly growing, and the general economy hereabouts is not as bad as other places. A lot of state services are being cut, but, hey, we are always near the last 5 states on the bottom anyway. Here at the coast in this one area things are not horrible-yet.
I've seen some tarps up in the woods I've never seen before as I go to work. The guys I know are in a particular line of work, and we are loading up on PMs, food, and lots and lots of lead.
If the muslim, commie, whatever-he-is guy gets re-appointed, this country is done. It will probably degenerate into a revolution.
Good luck, America.
Skyrocketing ammunition sales.
More 'lost dog' signs.
My trash is getting picked up earlier in the morning.
Epidemic of street corner windshield washers.
High-end brand products on the clearance racks.
one good recession indicator: you're unemployed again....
I have a job (thankfully - went without for nearly two years) as a systems architect consultant. My utilization in in 2011 was about 75%, meaning that I was on active assignment about 3/4 of the time. Last project ended mid-December. I'm finally starting a new assignment next week after spending the last 2 1/2 months doing nothing but presales that ended up falling through or getting delayed.
We are a primary services contractor to a couple medium sized vendors that also have their own professional services groups. They're scaling back those PSCs because they just aren't getting the volume they expected six to eight months earlier. Most of the contracts that are coming up are government (we're in the DC area) whereas most of the contracts from last year were private. So yes, there's no question in my mind that the recession is becoming more significant.
When Ace Ticket, which has been marking up Red Sox games 200%, 300%, even 600%, is selling tickets for game in Fenway on a Friday night for FACE.
Now thta you coudl afford face anyways; cheapest ticket in Fenway is $28 (for a seat) and $20 (SRO).
I also remember after the 2008 crash in October that I got Patriots tickets for a Monday nighter vs the Broncos for 1/2 Face.
Flat tires, and broken down cars.
I have a sales territory with about a 250 mile radius. 4 years ago you would see the occasional broken down car, which was always empty.
Yesterday, on a 3 hour round trip I saw three people changing their tires, and another three off the road with their hoods up, talking on their cell phone.
Plus an above average number of empty broken down cars.
B
Only new retail in S Indiana is thrift shops. One on every corner, usually next to an indoor flea market that are in the abandoned kmarts.
I did splurge on a totally uneccessary handgun that I bought just to have. A new Ruger SR22 .22lr polymer pistol. $335 out the door. A 525 ct value pack of Federal 22lr is $20 and I'm living large!
I do hope it does not become necessary.
I am not as sure.
CCW application in process.
ANYONE NOTICE THIS?
GUNS AND AMMO SHORTAGES!!!!!!!!!
Thanks Owebummer.
Really good toilet paper, paper towels and other of the things that "preppers" love just never go on sale anymore.
I've been stocking up too...no way do I want to be on the fan side when the SHTF and not have a lot of soft double-ply handy.
Went to the grocery store on the day the monthly food stamps, etc. hit the accounts. I had no idea the number of people who dwindle down their accounts - then hit the store the that first day of the month when their funds are in.
By the time I had arrived - it was like the store had been raided.
The employees said they get so busy on these days each month that they don't even have time to re-stock shelves. Literally - they had signs up that directed people to see a salesperson for assistance if your desired item was not on the shelf (it was likely still in the box in back).
This sort of freaked me out. I had no idea how many people in my newly adopted county in FL are dependent on assistance.
My favourite indicator of the depression that is (still) upon is the MILES. Yes, MILES, of empty rusted frieght RR cars parked on abandoned tracks in rural Colorado. There is one on the track between Salida and Canon City, Colorado that is many hundreds of cars long. It has been sitting and welding itself to the track in what must be a pretty well established galvanic reaction since 2008.
The other indicator is the 87% drop that my personal income has taken since 2007.
60% of the businesses in the neighboring town are tits-up.
ALL of the buisnesses in this town, (pop. 300, dirt streets) but one are tits-up. We used to have two hotels, a beauty shop, two restaurants a liquor store, a feed store and a PO. The PO and the feed store are the only ones standing and the PO is closing this summer. The feed store is soldiering on. With The Helicopter at the helm of the FED, beef prices are at record highs so the feed store is still going. Property values there have declined by 70-93%. No joke. A nearby subdivision that had lots selling for $103,500 in 2007 just had a lot sell (first on in two years) for $6000.00. A house across the steet from me sold in late 2007 for $270,000. It sold 2 months ago for $65,000.
Oh yeah, one more. Yesterday in the local one-room gorcery store a 32oz jar of creamy JIF (Frankenfood) was on the shelf for $9.95. Thanks again to The Helicopter.
I am so glad the economy has turned the corner. (dripping sarcasm)
For me it's how quickly I can get help at a bestbuy store. Lately I've gotten not just a salesperson but also an almost knowledgeable manager leading me to believe the apocalypse is nigh.....
worstbuy shot themselves in the foot w/ their terrible customer service and harassing customers into buying extended warranties. Chairman/CEO at the time Dick Shulze came up to me in a store while filming a commercial several years ago and I told him the very same thing and that I'd prob never be back in one of his stores again. A high up worstbuy employee friend said Amazon is eating their lunch.
I recently bought a new smartphone for one penny from Amazon, one penny. The newest samsung galaxy2 and also reduced my monthly phone bill by 50 bucks by ditching iphone/att.
Downsized my office at the beginning of '09 to a complex that was 70% occupied. Closed the office as of today (going back to the black market), complex occupancy is below 50%, with rents below a buck a foot. Nice ladies across the way doing books for the family concrete business said they haven't had a contract in 6 months and will be closing soon.
Biggest indicators? Hell, take yer pick - low traffic, high vacancy, low wages and high average employment ages for menial tasks. Seeing lots of thirty-somethings going door-to-door in strip malls selling rubber dogshit or perfume, and different crews covering the same turf on the same day.
One more: local Barnes & Noble last Sunday: mid-afternoonish (2-3pm), about 35 'customers' settled into various nooks, crannies, and floor seating reading books/magazines, but I only saw one other person purchase anything in ~45 minutes in-store.
See a lot of the "real world" in my line of work.
-People living in storage units
-Lots of suicides/attempts, especially gunshot wounds
-Homes in absolute disrepair, even in the "nice" neighborhoods
That being said...
- I wait tables on the side down the street - sales/profits up big YOY
- Tips at aforementioned restaurant are almost entirely 20%+
- My GF is a wedding coordinator/event planner - biz is booming...plenty of $50k+ weddings on her agenda, charity involvement at an all time high
- My dad's biz (clothing/uniform sales+distribution) is doing great...hasn't slowed down at all since 2008, even with high fuel costs
- The lines at Costco are as long as ever...I still see plenty of nice shit being carted out
- Lots of new housing developments going up
- Lots of small businesses are thriving - frozen yogurt, sushi joints, drive thru espresso, ale houses, CrossFit gyms popping up all over and kicking ass (even with $200/month membership)
-Listed my gas hog 2001 4runner on CL @ 30% over BB...phone is ringing off the fucking hook...even with $4 gas
Median HH income in my town is $130,000 however...
I am in the TV business ( we sell digital TV equipment to operators and in retail ). Our US unit is doing ok, sales have slowed down a bit but nothing terrible.
I guess TV is the cheapest form of entertainment and will not suffer much during recessions. Might even boom...
Recession indicators:
The number of new 1 person small businesses, people who got canned trying to hang a shingle doing something(this can give a false sense of recovery) but they are probably mostly off the radar.
The number of applicants for each position offered (hundreds to thousands in many cases)
The popularity of Gold Rush shows, Storage locker auction shows(fuckin really??) How many Pawn shop shows now? 3?
The popularity of the groupon type online coupons which unlocks price deleveraging in a hurry showing how desperate people are for some guaranteed sales. They have to cut their retail price by 50% and then split w/ the coupon company, so the merchant nets around 25% of retail price.
I'd love to see a study of the grocery store packaged goods on how the net weight has decreased, the packaging displacement has increased(that big bubble at bottom of jar displacing product) People are too dumb to see that prices may be the same but 20% less product in the package.
I bought some eye drops at aC-store, the dang bottle was a 1/3 of regular size at same price as old larger bottle, nearly $5.
Structured settlement adverts. JG Wentworth, Peachtree etc.... Who the heck are these guys targeting? Can you sell your SS/Disability benefits for lump sums?
Receivables factoring/financing has got to be booming in the US. Getting a line of credit from a bank is near impossible now. Businesses now gotta factor receivables for a 2-3% a month fee.
I have a friend who works (worked?) in the Life Settlement business at CSFB. I think this is the new subprime. Its burgeoning.
Another one. Wife told me on her Facebook page the number of folks who are shamelessly promoting Avon and Mary Kay, herbal supplements is up. Mostly housewives of guys who were strong providers. Oh well.
I recently met a very bright 25y.o business grad from LA who has resorted to selling Amway full time to make a living. Must be desperate to have to peddle that junk to your friends.
sell car to save on gas, I agree.
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Well I gotta ring in here. I am in the publishing biz in Nebraska. We didnt experince the super bubble like the rest of the US did so the previous ups werent as pronounced.
Our advertising sales did dip in 2008 but we are up on both our properties last year at 21% and 16% respectively. So all is not bad. There is still money to be made, you just have to faster and smarter and actually deliver what you say you will (ie keep your word)...
However I work with a bunch of small businesses and the level of stupidity from some of these folks and thier inability to deliver thier product and service successfully seems to be increasing. Dumbasses.
I am able to win casue I just outwork the competition and the last thing I would want to do is figgure my per hour wage. But whatevva Id rather work than watch tevee and collect checks from the criminal enterprise.
Short answer, this depression has pretty much ended films for me.
Here in Medford, which by the way is about a quarter million people in the Rogue Valley but far from any real cities like Portland (250 miles) we have seen Walden Books go under, leaving only one Barnes and Nobel as a place to buy books, and I hate them because they pester you about some damned discount card you can pay for AND get spammed relentlessly on your e-mail account if you buy this so called discount. They also set up a noisy kiosk for their Nook E-book products that is right in the middle of the stores traffic system and the guy pushing these will not leave you alone. (NOOK-E... hmmmm).
Then there was Hollywood Video, one day just folded up, doors locked, I think people who had movie rentals out just got to keep them free. That left just the three Blockbuster stores for movie rental and the lines were just absurd, especially on Tuesdays when new releases come out, and Fridays when people got their weekend rentals, if you did not get your movies by 12 on Friday you were SOL for that weekend, you were stuck choosing between some dated slasher flick or The Sound of Music. I can only watch Mary Poppins run from the Nazis so many times before I start to wish they would catch her.
Then two of the Blockbuster locations went tits up and now we have just one video rental store (the smallest and least centrally located one at that) for almost a quarter million people, yet they still get the same number of copies of new releases, like they got just 6 copies of The Rum Diaries." I gave up after a couple weeks of going in every morning to get that one. Cancelled my rental pass. I must have burned a full tank of gas trying to get to Blockbuster to find a movie worth watching. Sometimes they go weeks with no new releases.
Partly I think because Blockbuster too went bankrupt and Dish Network bought them out, they are trying to get people to switch to satellite TV and pay to get those movies "on demand." I think Dish saw buying Blockbuster out of bankruptcy for cents on the dollar as a great way to buy Blockbuster's customers for cents on the dollar. I do not go to theaters to see movies unless it is a great film that really requires a big screen, I go maybe twice a year, because I hate not having an intermission so you can go smoke or pee and with 40 minutes of repetitive commercials and trailers a two hour film requires abstention from tobacco and bathrooms for three hours or more. Fuck that bullshit, they also make me mad when they waft "enhanced" popcorn odors into the theater but charge $4.50 for a handful of popcorn and $4 for a small Pepsi.
So the film industry and especially the video rental business models are totally busted by this depression. They are either going to have to cut down on those $20+ million dollar per film movie stars, and half a billion dollar budgets (James Cameron) or abandon movie making to Bollywood, which turned out 50,000 movies last year for less than it cost to make Avatar, a forgettable film if there ever was one.
The blockbuster mail service was awesome, til my local location closed up. I paid less than 20 bucks a month for 3 movies at a time with an online queue like netflix. But I could also trade those in at the local blockbuster. I always had movies on hand, sometimes 6 at a time. Now that the store is gone I'll probably cancel the mail service and just learn about torrents.
The number of tents along the railroad tracks between Chicago and Detroit. By far there were more this last weekend than previous trips. An especially large group outside of Kalamazoo. There were even a couple just outside of the train station in Ann Arbor.
The group of middle aged men on their first day of on-the-job training at Red Mango. Far less fun to transact with than the high school girls normally behind the counter.
the number of panhandlers, jobs, inexperienced hookers, undercover cops, bad decisions.
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