Posted on 01/08/2014 1:36:55 PM PST by dynachrome
Just out from Macy's, which first said the following: "The 2013 holiday season was successful for Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s as we offered fresh and distinctive merchandise, delivered great value to the customer and provided a robust omnichannel shopping experience... Even in a questionable macroeconomic environment with challenging weather in multiple states, the positive response from our customers during the holiday season is yet another vote of confidence that our well-established strategies continue to work for us." What well-established strategies one may ask? Why the following of course, which was also just disclosed in a separate news release "outlining cost reduction initiatives to support continued profitable sales growth": "Approximately 2,500 employees are expected to be laid off and are eligible for severance as a result of these organizational changes. Other associates are being reassigned with new duties or transferred; some open positions will not be filled."
And just in case the message was missed, "The company is announcing today that it will close the following five Macy’s stores in early spring 2014:
•Fiesta Mall, Mesa, AZ (159,000 square feet; opened in 1979; 98 associates); •Metcalf South Shopping Center, Overland Park, KS (216,000 square feet; opened in 1967; 88 associates); •Jamestown Mall, Florissant, MO (200,000 square feet; opened in 1994; 88 associates); •Medley Centre, Irondequoit, NY (129,000 square feet; opened in 1990; 96 associates); •Fashion Place Mall, Murray, UT (26,000 square feet; opened in 1988; 42 associates). Luckily, JCP and Sears are both hiring.
What can one say but a truly vibrant economy, and a consumer that has never been stronger.
As for M stock, it's up 6% after hours.
Ah, I see. Thanks.
I wasn’t trying to be condescending. I love nice stuff including high end shoes and handbags but refuse to pay the price for them so have become kind of an expert in my area on shopping. Lol. Everyone is always amazed at the ‘buys’ I get. I dress high end at around Target prices.
I mainly figured out where and how to purchase because I used to resell high end stuff on EBay.
Oh, I get what you’re saying, and I’m sorry if I was offensive. I admire anybody who can find bargains like that. I like to shop, too...it’s the female genes.
My MIL, God bless her....she and my FIL have worked super hard all their lives, and she can afford to shop the way she wants. She has it elevated to an art, LOL.
All is good. ;). Shoppers unite!! Lol
A Failure in Progress
By The Editors NRO
Jan 7/2014
Because the Obamacare website is performing better than it did during its admittedly disastrous first weeks, and because congressional Democrats have not defected in the numbers that would have put the law’s near-term survival in question, supporters of the law believe that they have turned a corner. They are convinced that those of us who oppose the law can do no more than temporarily obstruct it, and that the benefits it is starting to bring to the American public will ultimately make it popular and then unchallenged.
In reality, Obamacare remains an unpopular law with deep flaws. It is performing much worse than the advocates predicted as recently as September. At the end of that month Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius told NBC Nightly News, “I think success looks like at least 7 million people having signed up by the end of March 2014.” It was last year that the Congressional Budget Office came up with that estimate for the number of people who would enroll in Obamacare’s exchanges. Nobody now expects the target to be hit. The administration is not touting that measure of success any more, and neither are its supporters — even after the supposed triumph of its “tech surge.”
The administration is not providing the information to allow us to evaluate other aspects of its performance. We suspect that in many states, the population in the exchanges is older and sicker, and thus more expensive to cover, than the administration or the insurers had anticipated. We suspect as well that a large percentage of the people whose enrollment the administration is applauding will never pay their premiums, were previously insured but forced off their plans by Obamacare, or both. The truth will, however, eventually out.
And while Obamacare will be able to publicize positive stories — people who finally have help with their medical bills notwithstanding their preexisting conditions, for example — the negative stories will keep accumulating, too. More people will lose their existing coverage, or see their premiums increase, or their choice of doctors restricted.
More exemptions will be granted from the law, too. Note that the biggest one so far, the hardship exemption from the individual mandate for people who lost their coverage owing to Obamacare, was announced after the surge. The overall picture does not seem likely to make the law popular.
The premises on which the law was sold also seem to us to be likely to keep unraveling. It is now widely acknowledged that the president spoke falsely when he said his law would let people who liked their insurance keep it; it will soon be clearer that what he said about keeping their doctors was also false. In recent months studies have suggested that merely expanding insurance coverage does not do much to improve health outcomes, or reduce ER visits — which were crucial to the argument of advocates of the law that it would restrain health-care costs.
This is no time, then, for opponents to flag in calling for the repeal and replacement of Obamacare. Republicans should continue to press at the law’s weakest points. They should challenge Democrats to suspend the individual mandate for everyone, legislatively. The exchanges are likely to put serious financial strain on the insurance companies, who will want a bailout; Republicans should seek to repeal the claim on federal money that the law creates for them. And they should explain that conservative reforms can provide care for the sick, and peace of mind for the healthy, without the many costs of Obamacare.
Republicans will then be advocating a better deal for Americans while Democrats are trying to lower the bar for the law’s success — lower it so far that its mere survival qualifies. We trust voters to draw the right conclusions.
I was hired at Macy’s as a seasonal employee last October. They have offered me a permanent position which I will take because I can’t find work in my profession these days.
Obama’s 2nd term? I’m holding out for the Goodwill IPO at this point.
The economy will be booming as more people lose their jobs, because for each dollar paid in unemployment, $1.7 dollars is added to the economy.
I didn’t think I could get through that without laughing.
I’ve seen several turned into schools, whether college campuses or private schools. But people now prefer to go into only the stores they want or buy online, not wander past dozens of stores to hit one they are interested in.
Kmart bought Sears several years ago.
Agreed. Too many malls assume that teenagers with disposable cash are their salvation.
And packs of wandering teens lead to crime and uncivilized behavior, driving out families and older women with spending money.
Food courts hastened the decline by encouraging and enabling loitering, littering, general noise and filth.
I remember when sit-down eating was limited to a cafe at the anchor store, or buying the ocassional snack or Icee at the drug store and then sitting down somewhere on a bench. I think the problem got going with the weird K-Mart quasi-cafes in the middle of their stores. I forget what they were called but you’d have to be kind of desperate considering some of their offerings, lol.
worked there for holidays 2 yrs ago, and was first job many decades ago. today, still all made and china and therefore, all replicated.
Everything is replicated in Chuna whether it is made in China or not.
“omnichannel”
Brick & Mortar, Internet, Catalog, Home Shopping Network, Door to Door (have I missed any?)
Not to mention thousands of cancelled plane flights over the past week because of the consumer “protection” put in place to save passengers from sitting on the runway without taking off for more than three hours - rather than risk the big fines involved if they can’t get into the air in time to avoid long delays because of the bad weather, airlines are cancelling flights altogether - we’re so lucky to have those noble crusaders in government looking out to save us all from the least possible inconvenience.....
I received some Macy's coupons in the mail and used them for a great discount on some Kitchenaid mixer attachments. They were on sale (for less than I could find elsewhere) AND I got the 20 or 25% coupon savings. It arrived within a couple of days and had a nice thank you note enclosed.
That’s a lot of Santas looking for work.
Given that the lowest ranking Macy’s employee is more talented, has more ability, and has produced more for the country than the pile of stinking excrement currently infecting the White House, sooner or later we’re going to have to send the Kenyan back to where he can do good...as a septic tank diver.
The man is slime.
I thought Obama said that if you like your Macy’s you can keep it.
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