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 ...
Gracious, don’t they understand that the disposable income is not available?
I haven’t heard one projection about Christmas sales yet.
Normally we would be hearing about this quite a bit by now.
This deep recession may be with us for a while.
Consumer spending is about 2/3 of the economy. If consumer spending falls, it not only cuts business income, it can result in layoffs at retail businesses. Which results in more unemployment, and those people in turn cut back their spending since they lost their jobs, which in turn can result in other retailers cutting jobs. It’s a vicious cycle.
Democrats seem determined to let the Bush tax cuts expire. While they may want to punish Bush retroactively by doing so, letting the tax cuts expire will result in a tax increase. A fragile economy won’t take a tax increase without bad consequences.
How’s the White House campaign for “Recovery Summer” going? I haven’t heard about it recently.
What percent is food stamps?
Its a vicious cycle.
Yep.
Times are harder than 1929. Seriously, it’s rough. People are tightening their belts and the cycle begins.
Exactly,
Why is it so hard for the Wall Street types and the .gov Obamabots to understand that folks are terrified.
That just because they have a job this week, don’t mean they will be unemployed next week.
I find it hard to believe that these people are truly that stupid. Detached from reality, maybe, but that stupid, lord I hope not...
LOL!!!!
an excellent question
I was unable to find the answer via searching Google news
Well I would assume they will be bad, but why aren’t we getting these? Has the MSM been told to avoid this subject
before the elections?
Christmas? lol....
The way things are going, most Americans will be exchanging canned food for Christmas...
What don't these people get?
Most Americans have no more money for anything "extra" and can barely afford to pay their mortgages and bills with their wages that have been stagnant for the past 10 years. If they still have jobs...
Starving the parasites and going Galt. The parasitic class aka the DC elites, illegals, and gov’t check layabouts are about to find out what REAL POVERTY is like. The US is BANKRUPT. We can’t afford leeches.
Or savings...
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.
My son in law has his own business doing remodeling and home repairs. His big jobs have all dried up. He has only 2 or 3 days per week of work and then its small jobs. He recently was working 6 days per week doing bathroom /kitchen remodels. I don’t blame people for being afraid to spend right now. My husband has a job but sales are way down. I work 3 part time jobs....
What do you base your statement about it being worse than 1929?
In other news, Trickle UP ecomonics doesn’t work.
I think people will go cheap on back to school to have a little something left for Christmas.
I’m doing my best to go Galt in a virtual fashion. Hope that helps.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.