[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

Thanks for posting this. The lack of response is probably due to the fact or rather "reality" of what our economy is going through. Not the best news.

IMO, Prices are just to highly inflated. You can lower interest rates all you want, but if wages do not inflate at the same rate as durable goods, you get recession, and then depression. The housing markets are also overly inflated. For example, people who bought a house 4 years ago at 250,000 say they could not afford their OWN home in todays markets.

I hope our current administration can pull us out of this mess. But it took years (8) to get us here,.. it may take a while to get us out of it. I don't know that we share the belief that it will start to improve by spring. Not enough tangible change for that. Just look at the stock market and real estate prices. Talk about irrational exuberance!!

I just recently learned that they have changed the amount of debt to income ratio for homeowners. The debt ceiling is a lot higher. A recipe for disaster... Things have to change dramatically before they will "truly" get better.

Greed is still the dominant emotion regarding pricing. But soon, so many people will be out of work, that housing will be in big trouble. There was just an article on here (I believe it was here, but it could have been my local newspaper) where all the city mayors have reported an increase in families asking for financial assistance, medical assistance and food.

Then when you put that,..with the fact that the "reported" unemployement rates are only reflected by people STILL recieving unemployement benefits (not taking into account, all those whose benefits RAN OUT) one realizes that we are in an economic nightmare.

Yet, Americans are still buying up the large ticket, overly priced real estate in my area. It's just unbelievable!!! The area realtors are "feeding" the local paper here with stories of how the real estate markets are in trouble elsewhere in our state,. but we are enjoying growth. Bull puckey!!

For crying out loud.. a car payment is what a typical house payment used to be not long ago!!! How does anyone own two cars?? It has gotten bizarre.

[RLK]

Sears, here, is offering what are ordinarly post holiday sale prices, now. Additionally, ther are offering 10% across the board additional price reductions on early Saturdays to draw people in. At Staples business supply you can pick up computer memory for $5.00 or less per stick after manufacturer's rebate. Multicolor printers for $10.00 after rebate.

[linn37]

K B's sales are slow because they have not had a decent sale. Gap and Old Navy are overpriced to begin with. Give us some good deals and we will buy!!!

[eddie willers]

The Thanksgiving shopping weekend, while solid, failed to give merchants the relief they were hoping for

They were better than solid, they were good.
However, I think it was the night before Thanksgiving, someone posted a report here on FR that some council was going to report that we were in a recession on the following Monday, regardless of the numbers and in spite of their (the council) being surprised that the indicators of recession being much lower at that point than they predicted.

Sure enough, even after a good weekend, they released their report and it lead the news everywhere, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy... IMO.

Why is it important that we be in a recession?
Who gains?

[T. P. Pole]

Not to be a doubting Thomas here, but has anybody seen anything besides scarves, sweaters, and handbags with prices slashed?

I've been watching the ads and doing walkthroughs, and I haven't seen "great" prices anywhere, and have seen very few "good" prices. Reading through the comments, it seems that nobody has mentioned anything besides ridiculously priced items being sold for slightly-less ridiculous prices (an 80 dollar sweater? Why would you spend more then 20?).

Anybody? Anything really out there?

[buaya]

Could this be the dreaded deflation monster, rearing its ugly head?

[sangoo]

bump