Posted on 08/17/2010 5:14:57 PM PDT by EBH
Even deep discounts on everyday items don't seem to be enough to get Walmart shoppers to bite these days, and other chains are worried Americans won't be in the mood to spend in the months ahead, which are critical for those companies....
...Teen clothes store Abercrombie & Fitch, which slashed prices on some of its jeans by 40 percent to get people to buy for the back-to-school season, ...
...At Home Depot Inc., sales are being driven by small repair projects, not big renovations, and weak spending has caused it to cut revenue forecasts for the year....
...Customers are having a hard time stretching their dollars to the next payday, and food-stamp use is still rising, the company said.
Middle-income shoppers are not faring much better. And stores can't even count on shoppers with jobs because of layoff fears. As for the affluent, they're holding up better, but wild stock-market swings have them a bit spooked as well.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
“The way things are going, most Americans will be exchanging canned food for Christmas...”
We’ll be trading single socks of any color with less holes. ;-)
Took my granddaughter back to school shopping this last weekend. Hit all the outlet stores, Nordstroms, Neiman-Marcus, Saks, Juicy. The sales were great. I paid $6-7 for name brand tops. Alot to choose from and they were NOT packed.
... That would be a good trick for most working middle class...
How do ya save anything when the price of everything has basically doubled in the past 8 years while wages have been stagnant for the past 10 years?
How's that work?
Home Depot is about to be hit by a huge boycott. Their sponsoring of the childrend tent at the homosexual festivals is about to bite them hard.
Consumers and taxpayers are still getting burned, which is just another type of summer heat.
12ga. 100 pack at wm went DOWN from $22.97 to $20.97 last time I bought.
Dad and I have just taken up trap shooting.
In July, Kmart.com had clearance sales...I bought shorts, blouses, pajama’s, robes, shirts and more.
P.j’s. separates for 1.99 each.
August 1st, school shopping month, prices doubled.
They've got people out there working 12 hours per week, as the poor slobs are paying 10 percent of that in fuel alone to get to work and and back....Then they're told their lucky to have a part time job...
What a sad state of affairs.
Der Fuhrer does not like bad news!
Most telling/interesting thing I have read lately.
I thought so too, that is why I posted it. I work in retail and I'm not a fancy manager etc. When I am already feeling the inflation, that they and some here say isn't existent, it is only a matter of time.
It is rough and it ain't gettin' any easier, any time soon.
Maybe WalMart’s sales are down because shoppers are on to the game they play with their prices - e.g. big bag of dog food gets dropped from $12 to $10, other stores match the drop and then WalMart raises the price back to $12.
Also, IIRC, WalMart recently raised their prices store-wide by 6%. They already get killed on grocery prices by Aldi, so that sure can’t be helping matters.
We are experiencing - oddly enough - simultaneous inflation and deflation. Everyday items like food and whatnot are increasing in price while assets (real estate) are decreasing in price. Very very soon we will see an asset price crash in stocks and commodities should not be too far behind...When commodities go, prices for other goods should also come down - unless there’s some moronic new tax enacted...
This is an understatement. I have been tracking what is happening in food, and there are going to be whipsaws that are impressive.
For example, the big processed food makers have been begging the administration to ease sugar quotas for months now, because US inventories are close to running out, but they are being ignored.
Add to that congress’ mandate to divert vast amounts of corn, and thus corn syrup, to ethanol production. And, the actions of a federal judge have put off 95% of our sugar beet production for an estimated two years. That is, no sugar beets will be planted.
In other countries, sugar is already being speculated into shortage, so even if the barriers are lifted, the US may only have scant sugar at sky high prices.
I think the back-to-school sales numbers will be a good indicator for Christmas sales. I have a feeling it’s not going to be good.
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Back to School was weak in my area , I shopped 2 of the 3 big office superstores and they all had adequate inventory , even on the blowout items , $0.10 binders and $0.01 70 page notebooks , $0.25 dozen pencils and such...
Christmas will be weak but still profitable as the retailers will unload their unsold 2009 inventory (already accounted for in the cost column) in addition new items to sell.
The local Wal-Mart has put a couple of large carts with items on clearance, in conspicuous locations. These are mostly cleaning items such as laundry detergent and softener etc. I looked at them and they had been cut a few dollars but they still did not seem that good a deal to me.
Sure enough when I got to my local non chain drug store to fill my prescriptions I checked their prices on Fab and they were cheaper than Wal-Mart’s clearance price.
Also last week when I was doing my main grocery shopping for the month, an old lady asked me where the larger size of Kraft mayonnaise was. I looked and found a large and a pint size then glanced at the prices. Something did not seem right and sure enough, the smaller size was cheaper per ounce. The old lady was impressed. She said she never would have guessed that.
Just an oppinion based on what my parents told me it was like back then. I believe it WILL be worse than the great depression.
No, it isn’t harder.than ‘29. Remember back then there was no FDIC. When a bank went under, all your money went with it.
There is no Dust Bowl today.
There was no unemployment insurance, no nuthin’ for the unemployed.
Check out the stats on how many families had to pick up and move in the 30’s. It was millions. They put everything they had on the Tin Lizzy and moved clear across country because they heard there might be work. Some towns would chase the unemployed travelers out at gun point - because everyone was worried that some guy off the road would take their job.
Check out how many people moved out to the middle of nothing for the Hoover Dam project. I’ve lived in Nevada and north of US-6, I could live off the land. Down near present day Hoover Dam? A jackrabbit has to pack his lunch across that country. I don’t care how good your survival skills are. The area couldn’t support thousands of Indians off the land, so there was no way white folks from clear across the US were going to do better off the land. Yet 10’s of thousands moved there for just the chance of getting a job - not an actual job, just for a chance.
Things are bad now, but we are nowhere near as bad as the 30’s in human terms. I have seen modern day “Hoovervilles” in Colorado Springs, along the river, so things are bad, for certain. But we must keep our perspective.
I believe things are going to be a lot worse. Back then most people lived in the country. Since around 1960 more people have lived in the cities. Those in the country all had gardens. They all had hand operated pumps. I remember having those when I was a kid in the rural south. I also remember being able to drink clean water out of natural creeks and rivers. That can’t be done anymore. My mother told me of hobos coming to the door and her mother giving them a biscuit. Things were bad but they had something to eat. And back then the government wasn’t trillions of dollars in debt. As I said, things are going to be a lot worse. I’m hope I’m wrong.
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