When 0bummer and his corrupt FCC turn off the Net, there's going to be a LOT of cheap warehouse space available.
Posted on 12/25/2015 7:20:46 AM PST by jfd1776
If you regularly drive north from Chicago to Milwaukee on I-94, as I do, you have watched Amazon’s Kenosha distribution center grow by leaps and bounds. The parking lot is full, day and night, as it is in online retailers’ similar facilities all over the country nowadays.
They may be on the outskirts of a metro like the Kenosha one, or in the heart of town, like Amazon’s 26 urban fulfillment centers in Houston, New York, San Francisco, Miami and Atlanta, often saving a blighted neighborhood by new construction and new jobs that no other business could justify bringing there.
The Christmas season is responsible for some of the current bustle, of course, but these places don’t disappear after the New Year. This presence – a new business model enabled by the internet – is here to stay.
Similarly, if you drive past – or actually stop to shop at – any of the national monster chains, such as Meijer and WalMart, you’ve been similarly impressed by their rapid growth in recent decades. They sell everything you need; they employ truck drivers, shipping/receiving workers, stockers and cashiers, sometimes in the same 24/7 environment as those online businesses.
The situation of such businesses in one’s community is an unexpected windfall, providing property taxes and new jobs well in excess of most uses of such land. While some locales fight them for political reasons, they are usually a net gain – at least, after such infrastructural improvements as road widenings and highway access are sorted out.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN
All that being said, however, we are told that there’s a downside to this growth. The business press informs us that at least 24 enclosed shopping malls have closed down across the United States in the past five years. Worse, retail experts warn that another sixty are in danger of closing soon. People must not like shopping in malls anymore.
There are some new stores being built, of course. New stores everywhere. But not big malls, not big department stores like in the good old days.
What kind are they? Ross and Marshall’s… the discount clothiers. Half Price Books and Books-A-Million… the discount bookshops. H.H. Gregg… the discount electronics store. They’re all bright new retail shops, so every opening gives the lie to the claim that “retail is dyingâ€â€¦ but they’re not the same kind of retail as the old kind, are they?
The new economy is all about the internet… and if you must have bricks-and-mortar, it’s about the big store and the discount store, we’re told.
People want to stay home and do their shopping online, or get everything from the same store so they can do it all in one trip. People must like worrying about being home to receive a package delivery, or not mind fearing that it would be stolen between its delivery at 2pm and their arrival home at 6pm. People must like buying things sight-unseen, praying it’s as good as it looked in the picture. People must like pushing rickety carts through a bumpy parking lot in the rain or snow, more than casually walking back to an enclosed parking garage attached to a regular mall.
They must like these things, you see. That’s what the experts tell us, because preference is the only explanation for change. We’ve left the small retail stores and the regular price stores, in favor of outlets and discounters and one-stop-shops.
Investment advisors and the business press warn against retail, unless it’s one of the “new†kinds… because shoppers have changed.
BUT HAVE PEOPLE CHANGED OUT OF CONSCIOUS CHOICE?
In the mid-19th century, trailblazers such as Marshall Field and Aaron Montgomery Ward developed the modern department store chain, expanding the idea of a general store into a whole building of subsidiary shops, acting together as departments.
These stores didn’t just serve as stand-alone businesses though; by the mid-20th century they became the anchors of shopping districts or shopping malls, providing the community service of drawing shoppers to a location with free parking, restaurant and fast food options, other stores and other services as well.
The transformation of the retail world brought by the department store and the mall didn’t kill the small shops (though it sometimes required them to relocate). A good store in 1870 could still be a good store in 1970, though it may have moved from its own street corner into a newly built mall, in order to stay convenient for its clientele.
In a growth economy, retail may change; it may move around, but it doesn’t destroy. In a growth economy, where shoppers can afford to make choices, some will continue to patronize the old shop, others will patronize the new department store or mall; all will survive and some will prosper.
The issue isn’t the size or shape of the building, or the magnetic pull of a new Golf Mill or Woodfield or Water Tower Place across town. The issue is the growth economy. To shop, people must be able to pay, that’s all.
Many shoppers still like going to malls… many shoppers still like the convenience of getting everything in one department store… and many shoppers still like getting their jewelry from a jeweler, their kitchenware from a kitchenware manufacturer, their clothes from a single shop where the designers and buyers cater to their own type of customers’ style.
But for a consumer to act on his preferences, he has to be able to afford it.
If you can no longer afford to pay full price for your clothes, or books or china or jewelry, you must go online to search for sales, or find an outlet store. The boom in discounters, megastores and online retailers enables the American who must find the best price in order to afford his shelter, food, utilities and other basics.
Perhaps the change isn’t about preference at all; perhaps this change has been forced on us by an economy in long stagnation.
Despite seven years of the Obama administration’s claims of “recovery,†America’s median household income today is still lower than it was in 1999. This nation of 300 million has some 90 million people of working age “outside the workforce†– meaning they’re either unemployed or on welfare or forcibly retired far earlier than they desired, or just stumbling along on savings or their families’ generosity. Tax rates, unfunded government mandates, and crippling business regulations have driven so much manufacturing out of this country that our old manufacturing powerhouse cities – Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland – are dying, forced to maintain the infrastructure of a city with the tax base of a town. And government must cover the costs of tens of millions on welfare by charging the rest of society for the cost of their care.
THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER
So those who shop must count every penny… and that means you only go to the department store, or the full price luxury store, for one gift, and find a way to buy the others on clearance or online. You still shop; you still spend, so the business press reports sales as flat, or up a bit, or down a bit… but there’s still spending, so they think people are changing how they spend on purpose. The business press was educated on the philosophy of the American free market, told that everything is about customer choice; what they do must be what they want to do, so let’s help them do more of it!
But that’s not really true at all. The long economic plunge of the Pelosi-Reid-Obama years – the long plunge that started with the Democratic takeover of Congress after the 2006 elections, which the Obama presidency has kept a Republican Congress from repairing – has left the American consumer in a constant struggle.
This can change, and it will, if the next election goes right. A conservative Republican president can undo the damage of recent years; in concert with a Republican Congress, a conservative Republican President can welcome factories back to these shores, can cut the government spending that squeezes out the private sector, can undo the regulations that add so much unnecessary cost to energy and manufacturing and investment.
And if that happens – let’s make that “WHEN†that happens, since it MUST – we will see a return to the economic patterns of the past, when new retail options didn’t replace the old ones in the marketplace, they just joined them. As the last good Democrat President said of economics, “a rising tide lifts all boats.†With the right policies, the non-participation rate will shrink at last, and millions of underemployed or forcibly retired will be working again... and people will return to the traditional career trajectory of ever-improving standards of living, as America was intended to enable.
There is no need to give up on brick-and-mortar department stores, or on the wonderful commercial joys of America’s bustling shopping malls. There will be room for all of them again, for both the new and the old, the big and the small, the cheap and the luxurious, when the economy is restored, and more people will be able to shop without counting pennies again.
But you can’t expect to restore an economy by electing socialist Democrats who don’t believe in economics.
Democrat frontrunner Bernie Sanders says “You don't necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers…†He just doesn’t understand that the providers of those choices all employ people, giving their employees dozens of times more career opportunities than there would be if only one deodorant maker or only one shoe maker had a monopoly.
Democrat frontrunner Hillary Clinton, when once asked if there should be exceptions for the many employers who can’t afford her party’s costly regulations, tellingly snapped “I can’t be responsible for every undercapitalized entrepreneur in America!â€â€¦ clearly demonstrating that she defines a properly capitalized business simply as one that can afford her costly whims. She has neither patience nor compassion for employers (and their employees) who cannot.
And despite a century of watching the crush of overregulation and high taxation drive industry after industry to foreign shores, Democrat candidate Martin O’Malley lives in a world of denial, snapping “But it is not true that regulation holds poor people down or regulation keeps middle class from advancing.†He passionately sticks to his anti-employee, anti-employer, reflexively statist ideology, contrary to all the evidence, contrary to the life experience of millions of former textile workers, steelworkers, coal miners, shoemakers, toymakers, and every other industry that has been driven offshore by the 20th century leviathan state.
Can we return? Sure we can.
We can bring back manufacturing and employment; we can bring back the economic growth rates of the 19th century, along with the standard of living opportunities of the 21st. We’ve seen it in the boomlet that followed John F. Kennedy’s tax cuts, before the Great Society squashed them… we’ve seen it in the boom that followed Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts, before the tax hikes and regulatory growth of the 1990s squashed them.
We can do it, but only if we recognize that tax rate corrections aren’t enough; we need to cut off the arms of the leviathan that rise to choke off the business sector; we need to bind the legs of the leviathan that otherwise step on the necks of entrepreneurs before they can even get a start.
America can return, to the days of shopping without waiting for a clearance sale… to the days of not having to shop online at midnight because two or three part-time jobs just don’t allow time or money for a day of casual shopping. If government gets off our back, we will be able to again get back to shopping. A rising tide will lift all boats – both the new economy AND the old.
But first we must reject the destructive economic policies of the Democratic Party, and replace them with the economic vision of the Austrian school of economics. Then, and only then, will we be able to enjoy shopping again.
So don’t give up on those sixty shopping malls. Don’t assume that the cornucopia of the retail world is gone forever, and that Christmas shopping will always be done, frantically online, late at night, after arriving home from a second shift.
America doesn’t have to give up on anything truly American. America just has to give up on Democrats.
Copyright 2015 John F. Di Leo
John F. Di Leo is a Chicago-area Customs broker, writer, actor, and shopper. He worked in a mall one Christmas in college, during the Reagan era, and recommends it as a great experience for anybody. Don’t give up on the economy that made America great!
Permission is hereby granted to forward freely, provided it is uncut and the IR URL and byline are included. Follow John F. Di Leo on Facebook or LinkedIn, or on Twitter at @johnfdileo. Merry Christmas!
Big box stores prove people still shop at brick and mortar.
And malls filled with activity / entertainment venues like movies, indoor golf, etc do well - as long as they prevent packs of roving teens from taking over.
Malls that become baby-sitting for unruly teens drive away families and adult shoppers and die. For example, Mall of America may see things crash if the public thinks they didn’t do enough to prevent people from being harassed during Christmas shopping by Black Lives Matter protests.
That’s the fault of the malls for failing to provide security when more worried about public perception driven by “oh the poor babies are kicked out” whining.
Anyone who shops online is doing so with a computer or other electronic device. I have a hard time believing that anyone who can afford all the silly gadgets people use today can only afford "clothes, books, china, and jewelry" by shopping online.
I'd also point out that real estate analysts have been saying for years that this country has far more retail space than it needs -- a trend that began in the 1980s and accelerated over time until it crashed in 2008. The vacant commercial space you see all over the place is really just a return to the norm in that real estate sector.
#nojusticeNOSHOPPING
The economy is based upon ripple effects. A middle-class family with disposable income, hires local workers and tradesmen for the home repairs and jobs the family members are unable to do.
The effects of the Plague taught those who would see, it isn't a good thing to concentrate wealth in the hands of a few.
You are right! The last time I took my Mom, who was in a wheelchair, to the mall, it was like being surrounded by hungry hyenas and young lions. Gangs of surly, glaring, unfriendly punks were everywhere, just standing around or leaning against the walls staring at us as we went by. I fully expected us to get mugged, beaten and left for dead any minute. We couldn’t wait to get out of there. We have never gone back.
Online shopping is partly a response to a world that seems to be going Mad Max. The once relatively safe public square has been surrendered to them. Our government, schools and culture has helped birth this pathetic mess. I miss my old USA.
Clinton, Sanders and O’Malley seem to have pooled their very worst ideas and are running on them exclusively. WTF? It’s like they are daring the people to discover their socialist intentions, and they know the sheeple are all so stupefied it’ll never happen. Complete in-your-face brand arrogant bitch-slaps from the collective commie leftists.
There are still places such as you describe. I am fortunate to live in a small town with a vibrant town center, no vacancies, and the town filled with people. The Chamber of Commerce, City Council, and local PD do a great job keeping it an attractive and safe place for families. There are multiple family oriented events throughout the year, good festivals, and weekly farmer’s market during the summer. There are many neighborhood associations that do similar things and block parties abound in the summer. It really is the “old USA” you miss. The country is filled with such towns.
When 0bummer and his corrupt FCC turn off the Net, there's going to be a LOT of cheap warehouse space available.
Stores like Walmart and Target have many items.
And the open shopping centers with rows of stores seem to be replacing malls, since you can walk or drive between them but there is far less meaningless congregating.
I do not go to stores where they are understaffed in general, where the customers are too lazy to put up their carts and leave them blocking parking spaces or turn them loose and watch them strike the new car you just paid 30 grand for. I don’t waste money and time driving all over town when I can buy the same product cheaper online and most times save the sales tax my stupid state imposes on purchases here. I don’t put up with bad service where the kid checking you out has the attitude that he or she is doing you a favor by taking your money.
Now that the CEO of Sam’s Club has revealed her anti-white feelings its off to Costco’s I go. Diversity this bitzh. Money is democratic, but I am not.
I shop at an open shopping center in Camarillo Ca. It’s a premium outlet mall. I know which stores I want to shop at and drive to them. I shop the clearance racks at major stores, Sacs Off Fifth, Neiman Marcus Last Call, Tommy Bahama, etc. with coupons that they hand out at the doors, clearances, etc. I actually spend less money than if I bought clothing at Walmart.
Imo it’s the only way to shop.
I’ve been to that Camarillo outlet mall. Bought a few Perry Ellis dress shirts there at a great price, probably half what I would have paid for them in Chicago. So yes, I see the advantages...
But my point in my article wasn’t to deny the existence or value of many of the newer options, it was to say that the newer options aren’t putting the old options out of business... because a growth economy would provide room for both.
There will always be people (like me) who LIKE department stores and malls and specialty shops far more than buying at Walmart or online, but the current economy forces us to go to those cheaper options...
If we had the kind of economic growth we had during the Reagan years, the growth would support both the old and the new.
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