http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com
http://albertpeia.com/retailapocalypse.htm
‘If the economy is improving, then why are
many of the largest retail chains in America closing hundreds of stores?
When I was growing up, Sears, J.C. Penney, Best Buy and RadioShack were all
considered to be unstoppable retail powerhouses. But now it is being
projected that all of them will close hundreds of stores
before the end of 2013. Even Wal-Mart is running into problems. A
recent internal Wal-Mart memo that was leaked to Bloomberg described
February sales as a "total disaster". So why is this
happening? Why are major retail chains all over America collapsing?
Is the "retail apocalypse" upon us? Well, the truth is that this
is just another sign that the U.S. economy is falling apart right in front of
our eyes. Incomes are declining, taxes are going up, government
dependence is at an all-time high, and according to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics the percentage of the U.S. labor force that is employed has been steadily falling since
2006. The top 10% of all income earners in the U.S. are still doing very well, but most U.S.
consumers are either flat broke or are drowning in debt. The large
disposable incomes that the big retail chains have depended upon in the past
simply are not there anymore. So retail chains all over the United States
are now closing up unprofitable stores. This is especially true in low
income areas.
When you step back and take a
look at the bigger picture, the rapid decline of some of our largest retail
chains really is stunning.
It is happening already in some
areas, but soon half empty malls and boarded up storefronts will litter the
landscapes of cities all over America.
Just check out some of these
store closing numbers for 2013. These numbers are from a recent Yahoo Finance article...
Best Buy
Forecast store closings: 200 to
250
Sears Holding Corp.
Forecast store closings: Kmart
175 to 225, Sears 100 to 125
J.C. Penney
Forecast store closings: 300 to
350
Office Depot
Forecast store closings: 125 to
150
Barnes & Noble
Forecast store closings: 190 to
240, per company comments
Gamestop
Forecast store closings: 500 to
600
OfficeMax
Forecast store closings: 150 to
175
RadioShack
Forecast store closings: 450 to
550
The RadioShack in a nearby town
just closed up where I live. This is all happening so fast that it is
hard to believe.
But the truth is that those
store closings are not the entire story. When you dig deeper you find a
lot more retailers that are in trouble.
For example, Blockbuster
recently announced that this year they will be closing about 300 stores and
eliminating about 3,000 jobs.
Toy manufacturer Hasbro recently
announced that they will be reducing the size of their workforce by about 10 percent.
Even Wal-Mart is going through a
tough stretch right now. According to documents that were leaked to Bloomberg, Wal-Mart is having an
absolutely disastrous February...
Wal-Mart
Stores Inc. had the worst sales start to a month in seven years as payroll-tax
increases hit shoppers already battling a slow economy, according to internal
e-mails obtained by Bloomberg News.
“In
case you haven’t seen a sales report these days, February MTD sales are a total
disaster,” Jerry Murray, Wal- Mart’s vice president of finance and logistics,
said in a Feb. 12 e-mail to other executives, referring to month-to-date sales.
“The worst start to a month I have seen in my ~7 years with the company.”
So what in the world is going on
here?
The mainstream media continues to proclaim that we are
experiencing a robust "economic recovery", but at the same time there
are a whole host of indications that things are continually getting worse.
Even global cell phone sales actually declined slightly
in 2012. That was the first time that has happened since the last
recession.
Perhaps it is time that we faced
the truth. The middle class is shrinking, incomes are declining and
there are not nearly as many jobs as there used to be.
Mort Zuckerman pointed this out
in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal...
The
U.S. labor market, which peaked in November 2007 when there were 139,143,000
jobs, now encompasses only 132,705,000 workers, a drop of 6.4 million jobs from
the peak. The only work that has increased is part-time, and that is
because it allows employers to reduce costs through a diminished
benefit package or none at all.
So how can the mainstream media
be talking about how "good" things are if we still have 6.4 million
fewer jobs than we had back in November 2007?
And sadly, things may soon be
getting a lot worse. If Congress does not do anything about the
"sequester", millions of federal workers may shortly be facing some
very painful furloughs according to CNN...
Federal
workers could start facing furloughs as early as April, according to federal
agencies trying to prepare for the worst.
Unless
Congress steps in, some $85 billion in massive spending reductions will hit the
federal government, doling out furloughs to much of the nation's 2.1 million
federal workforce, experts say.
If you still live in an area of
the country where the stores and the restaurants are booming, you should be
very thankful because that is not the reality for most of the country.
I often write about the stunning
economic decline of major cities such as Detroit,
but there are huge sections of rural America that are in even worse shape than
Detroit in many ways.
For example, many Indian
reservations all over America have been shamefully neglected by the federal
government and have become hotbeds for crime, drugs and poverty.
Business Insider recently
profiled the Wind River Indian reservation in western Wyoming. The
following is a brief excerpt from that outstanding article...
The
Wind River Indian Reservation is not an easy place to get to, but I had to see
it for myself.
Thirty-five-hundred
square miles of prairie and mountains in western Wyoming, the reservation is
home to bitter ancestral enemies: the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho
tribes.
Even
among reservations, it's renowned for brutal crime, widespread drug use, and
legal dumping of toxic waste.
You can see some amazing photos
of the Wind River Indian reservation right here.
It is hard to believe that there
are places like that in America, but the truth is that conditions like that are
spreading to more U.S. communities with each passing day.
We are a nation that is in an advanced
state of decline. But as long as the financial markets are okay, our
leaders don't seem too concerned about the suffering that everyone else is
going through.
In fact, former Federal Reserve
Chairman Alan Greenspan essentially admitted as much during a recent interview
with CNBC. The following is how a Zero Hedge article summarized
that interview...
Starting
at around 1:50, Greenspan states the odds of sequester occurring are very high
- in fact, the playdough-faced ex-Chair-head notes, "I find it very
difficult to find a scenario in which [the sequester] doesn't happen" But
when asked how this will affect the economy, Awkward Alan is unusually clearly
spoken - "the issue is how does it affect the stock market."
While
not so many of our leaders have taken the path to direct truthiness, Greenspan
somewhat shocks a Botox'd and babbling Bartiromo when he admits "the
stock market is the key player in the game of economic growth."
Bartiromo
shifts uncomfortably in her seat, strokes her imaginary beard and stares
blankly as Greenspan explains that while the sequester will have a real effect
on the real economy, "if the stock market can hold up through
this, then the effect will be rather minor."
Do you see?
As long as the stock market is
moving higher they think that everything is just fine and dandy.
And the Obama administration?
They continue to pursue the same
policies that got us into this mess.
Their idea of "economic
reform" is to threaten to sue businesses
that do not hire ex-convicts.
And of course now that Obama has
been re-elected he is putting a tremendous amount of effort into
"stimulating the economy".
For example, he spent this
weekend golfing in Florida, and the
Obamas recently spent about 20 million
taxpayer dollars vacationing in Hawaii.
Meanwhile, the U.S. economy is
getting worse with each passing day.
If you doubt that economic
conditions are getting worse, please read this article: "Show
This To Anyone That Believes That 'Things Are Getting Better' In America".
When you look at the cold, hard
numbers, it is undeniable what is happening to America.
And our leaders are not doing
anything to fix our problems. In fact, most of the time they are just
making things worse.
So buckle up and get
prepared. We are in for very bumpy ride, and this is only just the
beginning.’