Free Republic

U.S. stocks fell sharply on Thursday after economic reports had more Americans than projected filing for jobless claims last week and retail sales unexpectedly falling in January. The Labor Department reported applications for unemployment benefits climbed by 8,000 to 339,000, higher than the 300,000 projected by economists. Separately, the Commerce Department reported retail sales fell 0.4 percent last month from December, versus expectations they would be flat.

Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog, The death of the middle class in America has become so painfully obvious that now even the New York Times is doing stories about it. Millions of middle class jobs have disappeared, incomes are steadily decreasing, the rate of homeownership has declined for eight years in a row and U.S. consumers have accumulated record-setting levels of debt. Being independent is at the heart of what it means to be "middle class", and unfortunately the percentage of Americans that are able to take care of themselves without government assistance continues to decline....

After a blistering four-month rally that took stocks to record highs last year, January could not have been more different, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) fell more than 5%. In the first month of the year, traders worried the financial health of both the U.S. and smaller nations meant stocks were too dangerous to continue owning for the time being, especially after a nearly uninterrupted rise that began in early 2009. Those jitters continued on the first trading day in February, driven by weakness in a manufacturing index from the Institute for Supply Management. By the close of...

Reuters) - Target Corp and Neiman Marcus are not the only U.S. retailers whose networks were breached over the holiday shopping season last year, according to sources familiar with attacks on other merchants that have yet to be publicly disclosed. Smaller breaches on at least three other well-known U.S. retailers took place and were conducted using similar techniques as the one on Target, according to the people familiar with the attacks. Those breaches have yet to come to light. Also, similar breaches may have occurred earlier last year. The sources said that they involved retailers with outlets in malls, but...

-Snip- And while successful retailers in 2012 may add stores this year, those that have performed very poorly may have to cut locations during 2013 to improve margins or reverse losses. For many retailers, the sales situation is so bad that it is not a question of whether they will cut stores, but when and how many. -Snip-

Retailers warn economy will be slowed by new trucker scheduling rulesBy Keith Laing - 01/12/12 11:27 AM ET New limits on the number of hours truck drivers can work per week enacted by the Department of Transportation will put the brakes on commerce, the lobbying group for retail companies said Thursday. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Association (FMCSA) announced last month that its new rules for trucker scheduling will limit the number of hours a driver can work to 70 per week. Under the old rules, truckers could drive 82 hours per week. The Washington-based National Retail Federation (NRF) said...

Around the country, night workers at Walmart stores are being told to come in five hours early ON Thanksgiving. After having work until 7am that morning, they must get whatever sleep they can and then reutrn to work at 5pm for a 12 hour shift. How much time does this leave for them to spend the holiday with their family? Walmart wants to call their employees associates. No, they are just workers.

Headline only as original source is Bloomberg News.

Snips from excerpt only website: Millions of low-income Americans who don't have bank accounts are finding an alternative to check-cashing stores at an unusual place: their local big-box retailer. Kmart has begun testing check cashing, money transfers and prepaid cards in stores in Illinois, California and Puerto Rico, with plans to roll out the services nationally later this year. Best Buy has installed kiosks in its stores for shoppers to pay utility, cable and phone bills. Wal-Mart has opened roughly 1,500 MoneyCenters that process as many as 5 million transactions each week. According to a recent government survey, nearly 30...

Borders delays book payments in financial dealsBorders has been delaying payments to book publishers in signs that it may be one of the first major victims of e-books. Early reports from Publishers Marketplace on Friday said it was putting off the payments to help refinance its debt but also wasn't certain that the plan would be effective. It might have to break its existing credit deals early into 2011 after facing a "liquidity shortfall," it said. The publishers weren't named by Borders when asked by the Wall Street Journal, but Hachette and Sourcebooks were named as two of those told...

JP Morgan: Food Prices Are Actually Rising, It's Just That Retailers Haven't Passed It On... Vincent Fernando, CFA Sep. 1, 2010, 9:32 AM As the battle over inflation vs. deflation risks rages, with the deflationista's apparently winning given the U.S. 10-year yield at 2.53%, we couldn't help but notice this snippet of retail commentary from JP Morgan's Charles Grom: Despite rising input costs . . . meat remains a promotional category. We believe that, despite increasing meat procurement costs (July PPI up 15.2% YOY), food retailers have more/less continued to follow an offensive pricing strategy. Said differently, most are not...

Retailers reported mixed May same-store sales Thursday morning, but the chains in the IBD 100 list of the very best stocks based on fundamentals and technicals generally advanced. Aeropostale (ARO) IBD 100 rank: 93 The value teen apparel chain reported only a 1% same-store sales gain vs. a year earlier, but that defied forecasts for a modest decline. Shares of Aeropostale gapped 7% higher in early Thursday trading. The stock is still about 6% off

If you've noticed that returning items to stores isn't as easy as it used to be, rest assured: It isn't just you. Thanks to a growing number of people who are returning items they've used or never bought in the first place, retailers have been employing a variety of new techniques to stop so-called "returnaholics" and others from abusing the return process. Last year, return fraud cost the retail industry an estimated $10 billion to $15 billion, according to the National Retail Federation. In fact, return fraud has become such a problem that it has sparked an industry-wide crackdown. Stores...

Retail Sales Unexpectedly Tank In December Joe Weisenthal Jan. 14, 2010, 8:44 AM Wait, we thought retail sales rebounded in December. At least that was the impression we got from per-store measures. Something's amiss. ---- AP: Retail sales fell in December as demand for autos, clothing and appliances all slipped, a disappointing finish to a year in which sales dropped by the largest amount in 27 years of records. The weakness in consumer demand highlighted the formidable hurdles facing the economy as it struggles to recover from the deepest recession in seven decades.[snip]

The hordes of Black Friday shoppers weren't enough to save retailers from dispiriting November sales, according to company data released Thursday. About 30 national chains reported monthly sales at established stores on Thursday, a key measure of the industry's health. Several chains, including Costco and J.C. Penney, performed worse than analysts expected. Retailers said that unseasonably warm weather dampened sales at the beginning of the month. In addition, shoppers saved their cash for post-Thanksgiving deals. "It was a month that disappointed us and, I think, the industry," said Michael Niemira, chief economist for the International Council of Shopping Centers, a...

Another Blue Holiday Shopping Season Predicted Tuesday, October 06, 2009 By Teresa F. Lindeman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette After last year's sickening 3.4 percent drop in holiday retail sales, a mere 1 percent slide this season may not seem so bad. Retailers already have pared their inventory in preparation for a season dominated by list-checking, deal-hunting, practical shoppers. The shopping forecast comes from the National Retail Federation, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group that calculates spending in the months of November and December -- excluding cars, gas and restaurants -- should hit $437.6 billion. That compares to $441.97 billion in holiday 2008 and...

Best Buy is going to have to pony up tens of thousands of dollars in merchandise -- or customer ill will. Sometime late last night or early this morning, BestBuy.com listed a 52-inch Samsung HDTV as $9.99. Whoops. The listing has been fixed and relisted at $1,699.99 -- and it's also marked "Sold Out Online." A crowd was gathered outside the Best Buy store located at Potomac Yards in Alexandria, Va., waiting for it to open this morning. Many of the potential shoppers had printed out the online ad and brought it with them. As shoppers were informed of the...

... [“Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture”] is a jeremiad. Ms. Ruppel Shell, a contributing editor for The Atlantic Monthly and a journalism professor at Boston University, is disgusted with retailers who she says have abandoned their principles in pursuit of rock-bottom prices. And she is angry with the rest of us for supporting them. Ms. Ruppel Shell argues that our national obsession with bargains has lowered our standard of living and hurt the environment and the quality of American products. “Cheap” has plenty of targets, and many are usual ones. Ms. Ruppel Shell lambastes Wal-Mart, saying it underpays...

After 8 years, my first post and it had to be a vanity. Can anyone point me in the direction of a solid and reputable online firearms retailer? I live almost 300 miles away from any sizeable city that would have a decent selection of retailers. I refuse to bend over for the couple of retailers I have in this town, price gouging has always been the name of the game in this community. If it would help, I'm looking for SKS/M-1 Carbine/pump shotgun. Haven't firmed up brands on the shotgun, I'm in shopping mode still (but leaning toward Mossberg)....

See Mr. and Mrs. American Consumer. Mr. and Mrs. Consumer are smart. Mr. and Mrs. Consumer know that business is bad. Mr. and Mrs. Consumer know that jobs are going away. See Mr. and Mrs. Consumer do smart things. See Mr. and Mrs. Consumer save money. See Mr. and Mrs. Consumer pay down debt. (Debt is money they owe other people.) See Mr. and Mrs. Consumer drive less in their big SUVs and not buy overpriced American cars. See Mr. and Mrs. Consumer spend less money at Christmastime on $2,000 big-screen TVs and $400 Coach handbags and $800 Manolo shoes....