Quick summary of the article: The mainstream media and business executives who supported the Royal Idiot are finding it more and more difficult to explain away the miserable economic failure that inevitably results from socialism.
Posted on 11/25/2012 11:18:15 AM PST by Zakeet
Edited on 11/25/2012 1:41:12 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
With all bad news on the tape now having a suitable "explanation", be it a prior president, a tropical storm, the weather being too hot, the weather being too cold, the weather being just right, but never, ever someone actually taking blame for the fact that life is what happens when corporate CEOs (and sovereign presidents) are busy making "priced to perfection" plans. So it is with what is now a confirmed flop of a Black Friday, which according to ShopperTrak saw sales drop by nearly 2% to $11.2 from 2011, which in turn was a 6.6% gain over 2010 (and would be revised to far lower once all the refunds and exchanges to cash took place in the two weeks later). This occurred despite a 3.5% increase in retail foot traffic to 307.7 million store visits. The nominal drop in retail sales also occurred despite a nearly 1% increase in the total US population over last Thanksgiving, and a 2% Y/Y inflation. But fear not: the ad hoc excuse for this "surprising" loss in purchasing power is already handy: it is all Black Thursday's fault, or the latest idiotic attempt by retailers to cannibalize their own future sales by diluting the exclusivity of Black Friday, and which will force all retailers to follow the sovereigns in a race to the bottom, as soon every day will be the equivalent of Black Friday. But at least retailers have another 364 years worth of excuses for the conceivable future to excuse any and all store weakness. Next year: it's all Black Wednesday's fault.
(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...
Quick summary of the article: The mainstream media and business executives who supported the Royal Idiot are finding it more and more difficult to explain away the miserable economic failure that inevitably results from socialism.
Black Tuesday’s fault.
How funny. Everyone was saying that Black Friday had the highest sales in history and now this author is saying otherwise. I guess we just need to wait and see what the rest of the season sales are. I know Monday will probably be a huge day for on-line retailers. I guess you can find the opposite said about everything.
While our family may not be representative of other middle class ones, we normally spent close to $15,000 during the entire holiday season in past years which included a week long ski trip, gifts for families, friends, business clients and two house parties. This year is stay at home and total spent will be closer to $500 including food for a Christmas dinner with family and close friends. All the shopping is done, most of it on-line unless I had a great coupon for a small local store, and gifts wrapped. Any energy remaining will be used to bake cookies and try to figure out how my clients and my business can remain profitable in the coming year.
yep.
Maybe it is. But for my business, on-line sales peak on 12/12, which also happens to be the biggest shipping day of the year. The sales curve is rounded on both ends.
"Cyber Monday" simply represents a slight uptick from the previous Monday, while Christmas purchases have been building up for at least a month.
Is what anyone says or reports about Black Friday on Black Friday or during Thanksgiving weekend ever borne out by the actual facts later?
I blame it on Black Tuesday. Nov. 6.
The only place that I’ve seen anyone claiming great sales numbers was Walmart.
When Black Friday sales start Thursday night... yeah, I guess Friday won’t be as busy.
Who’d a thunk it?
COSTELLO: I want to talk about the unemployment rate in America.
ABBOTT: Good Subject. Terrible Times. It’s 7.8%.
COSTELLO: That many people are out of work?
ABBOTT: No, that’s 14.7%.
COSTELLO: You just said 7.8%.
ABBOTT: 7.8% Unemployed.
COSTELLO: Right 7.8% out of work.
ABBOTT: No, that’s 14.7%.
COSTELLO: Okay, so it’s 14.7% unemployed.
ABBOTT: No, that’s 7.8%.
COSTELLO: WAIT A MINUTE. Is it 7.8% or14.7%?
ABBOTT: 7.8% are unemployed. 14.7% are out of work.
COSTELLO: IF you are out of work you are unemployed.
ABBOTT: No, Obama said you can’t count the “Out of Work” as the unemployed.
You have to look for work to be unemployed.
COSTELLO: BUT THEY ARE OUT OF WORK!!!
ABBOTT: No, you miss his point.
COSTELLO: What point?
ABBOTT: Someone who doesn’t look for work can’t be counted with those who
look for work. It wouldn’t be fair.
COSTELLO: To whom?
ABBOTT: The unemployed.
COSTELLO: But they are ALL out of work.
ABBOTT: No, the unemployed are actively looking for work. Those who are out
of work gave up looking and if you give up, you are no longer in the ranks
of the unemployed.
COSTELLO: So if you’re off the unemployment roles that would count as less
unemployment?
ABBOTT: Unemployment would go down. Absolutely!
Readig this article one would think the economy is doing great! Some excerpts below....virtually nothing is negative! Unbelievable!
Black Friday shoppers may have done more browsing than buying
http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bs-md-holiday-shopping-1126-20121125,0,5358898.story
In-store sales on Thursday increased 71 percent, according to Chase Paymentech, a top credit-card processor.
Over the last three years, Americans have paid down their debts to the tune of $636 billion. Gasoline, electric and natural gas prices are decreasing.
Consumer confidence is on the rise and those surveyed this month by the Credit Union National Association and the Consumer Federation of America said they are more willing to open their wallets. Twelve percent of those polled said they expected to spend more, the highest level since 2007; 38 percent said they would spend less.
Yes, Erkelbama, you did do that
The way it was going at our Walmart on “black Thursday” night, I’m surprised that they had any reason to open on Friday. There wasn’t anything left.
Another example of: who are ou going to believe? The media or your own lying eyes?
I worked Friday so I didn’t see anything. However, on Saturday I went out and could not believe that I found a parking space relatively close to the mall. That has never happened before during this time of the year. Normally I have to pack a lunch to go to the mall because of how far away I am parked. lol.
"and now...the Pullitzer for best line ever to appear in an on-line report on the economy..."
lol
I’m not sure that’s the case. At first, it was reported that Walmart had a record number of SHOPPERS. That somehow then got reported as record SALES.
From my limited observations, the Christmas shopping seems less than a year ago, possibly only because it’s started earlier than usual.
It has been reported that people are running up more Obama card... er, credit card... debt so far this season.
When consumers catch on that prices have been raised, not lowered, on “Black Friday” merchandise, expect this gimmick to lose its charm.
Other than three or four big screen TVs or iPads or computers used as bait, stores have few legitimate bargains. After hiring extra sales people and security guards for the mobs of “Looky-lous”, retailers will probably have lost money.
i thought Wally said it was their best one ever...
Walmart said it had the highest sales in its history. The other retailers have not published their results as yet.
Walmart wanted the union protestors to know they had zero effect on their sales.
Or at least at Walmart. "Comrades! I have glorious noise for you!"
Over the past few years, I’ve noticed the Black Friday sales reports that come out in the media are always described as blockbuster increases and upticks, but come January, when referenced, the same media refers back to them as below-par and overall disappointments.
It's The O-conomy, stupid!
O-conomy: An economic system built by Barack Obama to
crash free enterprise economics and crush market forces in favor of
a "from the top down" restructuring of a country into a welfare state.
If Black Friday itself was down because more people were out on Thursday why not just total Thursday and Friday sales and compare to that for previous years? If they’re inventive they could also do some adjustment for historical Thursday business. Maybe basic math is just too hard for some people.
$500 sound about right for what we’ve already been spending over the past couple of years.
We have an excellent collection of Christmas stuff for entertaining- decorations from Italy, Czech, Germany- ornaments from the same, tableware, CDs. A great supermarket with a gourmet kitchen for food. An annual concert at a Cath Church with traditional music. And bonus, no OB voters in that mix.
A ski trip, Tour of Italy, Christmas in Paris - memory bank for now. Wouldn’t trade them, but this works.
Friends, food, Faith.
It works, sorry retailers.
I send my extended family a local food treat, $30 per family. It adds up. Sorry, retailers. I’d rather be in Benghazi than at Walmart on “Black Friday”.
Is Red Friday a couple of years ahead?
On Friday I had to go to Tractor Supply and then on to WalMart. Tractor Supply had a much fuller parking lot than Walmart did. All of the registers were going at full speed.
At Walmart, there were two of the Grocery style lanes open and three of the 20 items or less registers going. And even then I only had one person ahead of me. Now I must say that our Local Walmart is in a small town and not a city, but it is still next to the major highway and was not busy at all.
In my quick walk-through Walmart I can also report that the Sporting Goods was the busiest department of all. The slowest? Toys, followed by Health and beauty.
I walked though two nyc Best Buys this afternoon. Both had very light foot traffic.
Both stores were very busy on Friday, though.
Blame? I would think lowering the slope of the sales curve by a slight extension would be helpful.
Number of sales was up, dollars brought in was down.
^ This..
One can only hope next year’s “black” days will shrink by the number of those A$$e$ featured on the videos looking like ravishing, amoral farm animals fighting for toasters. Oh, how the international humanists who created them, love to laugh and sneer at them.
Can you imagine being featured around the globe, tearing at other people to git yo bad American self a trinket in the name of Jesus Christ’s birthday party? Someone is laughing his A$$ off and it’s not Jesus.
I saw NO traffic to speak of on Rt. 110 between Farmingdale and Huntington LY NY on “black friday”. None. This is a major “corridor” on LI. Never happened before, rather traffic is gridlocked on black fridays previous.
Dammit! That is LI as in Long Island, NY.
They haven’t learned from the master, it’s Bush’s fault.
Wal-Mart started this nonsense followed by Target and then others. They are going to kill off the “specialness” of Black friday if they don’t stop.
Employees no longer have a holiday and people are starting to think “why go out at all?” In their mind, the sales don’t end and no reason to rush out and buy.
Also re-electing the Kenyan killed it for many, including myself. We cut our total holiday spending to $500 for the whole season. With an expected $3800 in new taxes on us next year with the tax increases, I am not in a spending frame of mind.
Join the club. We are doing the same thing as we prepare for $3800 in new taxes next year. We plan to spend no more than $500 for the whole holiday season (Thanksgiving and Christmas & New Year).
Word
This
I work for the online business unit of a very large retailer. Our (online) peaks were certainly not as high this year compared to last, but our online revenue is up over last year. I'm looking at the real-time graphs right now and we are generating more revenue this year vs. last, for today, the week and the month. I have no idea how much if any of this is being taken from the brick and mortar sales, but my area is up.
And as far as lowering the slopes, amen brother. We test our site for peak loads and it's much easier to sustain a moderate load for a long period than it would be to handle all our sales volume in a single day. Cheaper too, probably to the tune of several million in hardware alone. In our case, we can do both as we tested to around 400% of what we actually saw on Black Friday (thanks to offloading a significant portion to Thanksgiving evening).
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