Back-to-school shoppers in no mood to splurge

Teenager Fanta Bagayoko personifies U.S. retailers' worst nightmare this back-to-school season.

"I feel like the economy is messed up," the 18-year-old said while shopping at a Walmart in New Jersey, for herself and her niece. "Money wise, I still feel like we are in a recession."

It has been more than three years since the official end of the brutal U.S. recession, but Bagayoko and several other U.S. shoppers said they are not feeling better about the economy or their own finances, and are spending only on essential items. That does not bode well for U.S. retailers that are hoping for a much-needed sales boost after posting lackluster results in the first half of the year. Back-to-school is the second-biggest selling time of the year for U.S. retailers, behind the winter holiday season.

Weak income and employment growth are weighing heavily on Americans, especially younger shoppers.

Teen employment is at its lowest level since 1964, making more teenagers reliant on their parents to fund their back-to-school shopping, said Jharonne Martis-Olivo, director of consumer research at Thomson Reuters.

Many parents are not feeling good about the economy and the uncertainty in an election year, and are taking precautionary steps in case the economy deteriorates further, she said.

"I am not buying the swankiest of anything," said Ann Miller, 47, while shopping for her son Zachary, 8, at the same Walmart store. "I am feeling worse about the economy."

As school districts with strained budgets ask parents to buy more items that in the past would have been supplied by the schools, many parents push kids to make do with old items, shop at discounters or buy only what they really need.

"The school list is longer, but I am trying to get (just) the basics," said Yamila Pichardo, 35,

I agree. Personally, I would have told the teacher that a white one was what we could find and I would appreciate any sort of data showing red binders influence a child’s grade in a positive manner. If that wouldn’t suffice, I would have taken it to the next level. However, she was “fearful” of doing so because she didn’t want her daughter “marked” as a troublesome student (thus fearing the grade). I think if a few parents got a backbone now and again and really questioned stupid stuff like this... things would change. Plus, I have found that many teachers get the idea that if a parent challenges them (when the parent is in the right), the teacher won’t lower the kid’s grade because they realize the parent is watching. I’ve heard horror stories about my kid’s friends and acquaintances concerning academic situations that were tolerated by the parents even though they were in the right. Insane.

“The freebies usually fly in the poorest neighborhood...”

In my county, there is a “back to school fair”. Sounds nice, huh? It is when all the wonderful illegal and welfare students go to a large county building and get FREE backpacks with ALL the darn school supplies. We’re not talking about the off brand pencils, crayons, markers, etc... No, that would be unfair. The name brand supplies, thank you very much. I’m going to end my rant now... that large vein on the side of my neck is bulging. LOL!!!

I say if you cannot afford it then just wing it, what are the schools going to do arrest me for not supplying my children with socialistic colored coordinated pogrom booklets, or tunics?

America is busted, my income is being drained away every week by the state for child support, my hours are reduced so I have less than half my normal seasonal paycheck, they take 40% of my unemployment check in the winter. I get threatening letters from the state that if I get any more behind on my payments they will cancel my passport application, I guess they want me to cower and surrender like some third world citizen under communist controls.

All I am saying is that it doesn’t make me surrender, it doesn’t make me compliant, all it does is fuel a deep deep seated fire burning like in an underground coal mine.

Should they push a bit too far I may snap.

But then, maybe they wanted that all along.

Sounds like a situation in one of my favorite movies, "Falling Down," 1994 with Michael Douglas. He was just some poor chump that wanted to get home to see his kid and when everything piles on him, he just snaps. We got so many rules and so many freedoms taken away, what is a person to do? Can you imagine this situation magnified by a million or tens of millions? Maybe Michael Savage was onto something, he made a point that in order to save Britain, it will be up to the soccer hooligans to save her, maybe to save us, we need 20+ million people to "Fall Down." I know the cops caught Douglas in the end but if I was on the jury to judge him, I could not convict him.

Yeah, I feel the burning anger too, I feel it myself. You are not alone. They say the center of the Sun is at 35 million degrees, even higher when an H-Bomb is lighted up. My anger at times make that pale in comparison.

Romney is not 100% of the answer, except for foreign policy, I'd be a "Ron Paulie," but at least he does not hate America like the current crop of chuckleheads do.

This passport thing is scary, maybe it is time to start forging them, as with anything else, the more restrictions, the more criminals they make, I think Ayn Rand said that. We are becoming the Soviet Union, even beyond that, what the chuckleheads want to do would make the Soviet Union look like a haven of freedom in comparision.

Funny, as I type this, I'm listening to Crosby, Stills and Nash singing "Ohio," "tin soldiers and Nison's (or Obama's) coming....." I can't write this.

You are not alone.

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