Posted on 02/01/2016 8:58:20 AM PST by SeekAndFind
We have 94 million work-capable Americans who no longer even look for a job and are not counted in Dear Leader’s propaganda ministry of unemployment. We have Obamacare draining money out of families as they have to shell out thousands of dollars for the useless insurance to pick up thousands of dollars of deductibles before the insurance even kicks in, in other words a heavy burdensome tax with no return. We have automation coming on hard and strong as struggling employers cut cost and eject the headache of Obamacare. We have a collective group of crony capitalists strip mining every company down to the bone (try finding anybody at these retailers to help locate an item), a trucking industry that is being buried by tracking and regulations from lawyers in DC causing the backbone of the trucker industry to retire, and we wonder why the shelves are empty.
This entire country is stuck on stupid. The people in charge will not relent. Combine that with the last seven years of doubling or tripling national debt and this is going to continue to contract like crushing a beer can.
Back in the early 80s I worked in the wholesale construction supply industry. My client got hired by Montgomery Ward to remodel one of their stores. I got to know the MG rep pretty well and he told me they were renovating every store in the country. It was only a few years later that they shut down.
Maybe. I drive a 1999 F-250 and they’re not famous for their good gas mileage.
An added bonus is, I don’t need to worry as much about being assaulted by a gang member if I don’t have to leave my porch.
We’ve been told for the last 50 years how bad racism is but now I’m automatically a bastard and responsible for all the ills in the world because I’m white.
And customers obliviously blocking while they socialize on their cell phones.
My round trip to the grocery store is about 3 miles and I buy my groceries to last a month.
The only reason I drove as much as I did last year was because I had to go get my dogs vaccinated then a trip to the local SPCA for their licenses.
You are exactly right. Too many stores in one area means some will fall by the wayside.
As for empty shelves, I’m not seeing it. The only time I see empty shelves is at seasonal or holiday changeover time, and that’s temporary.
Stores that are still open don’t carry the variety that they did in the past. More and more, we do our shopping online.
Exactly.
Near as I can tell, it's mostly last season's, or last year's, inventory. I don't care, I'll be wearing it for more than one year. :-) And the prices are a fraction of retail.
No atmosphere in the retail outlet, though. Just racks and bins of stuff to paw through. The Main Store is a lot more fun.
Re out-of-sync seasons, received an email from a company that sells snow globes and they had their remaining Christmas stock available at 60% off with free shipping through January 31. I have a couple of clients that collect them so was glad to see these available at a huge savings so ordered two which I will keep until Christmas 2016. We used to only buy clothes which were on sale at the end of a season but don’t even do that any more.
You’re right about the must have. Unless I desperately need a replacement for something in the office or house that is broken, I don’t buy it. Two items on February’s list has two items which I put into that category - underwear and a toilet seat!
I’m all for capitalism but for Apple to use slave labor in China to build their products, then rake in $18.1 BILLION in PROFITS for the last quarter is unconscionable.
On a related note, there’s a growing concern in the defense industry with the revelations coming out that so many gov’t and defense contractor computer equipment was supplied by a vendor that bought everything from China, who just happened to have backdoors built into the hardware.
I don’t have a link for verification yet but I’ll keep looking.
When the sole concern of the financial globalist is how much they can skim by strip mining our country and selling us down the river it is only a matter of time before they succeed. Every one of us freepers that argued with the gloablist free traders on this board in the 90s and early 00s predicted what we are now experiencing. Notice that no one now defends the indefensible but the apologists for the crony capitalists?
Roger that. Plenty of choices out there, all chasing the same dollar.
Last year, WalMart dropped a "Neighborhood Grocery" in our town. There are two other grocery stores (a lower-end one, and a higher-end one) and a "Dollar General" all within rock-throwing distance of it. And, there are two dozen or more WalMarts, KMarts, grocery stores, and five-and-dimes all within a 15 minute drive.
Business at the new WalMart store is doing pretty well. Business at the other, close grocery stores and Dollar General doesn't seem to have dropped off any either. My 10c diagnosis is that WalMart is just cannibalizing its own business. People who *were* driving to the next town over to go to the SUPER WalMart, are just staying local to shop at the "Neighborhood" one.
We will see.
“Part of the problem early in the year is people are paying into their deducible. My family has to pay $2,000 before the health insurance kicks in and mine is a good policy.”
I wouldn’t generalize too much from your experience. Most families have only the occasional medical expense except around pregnancy, very young children, and in old age. They might be worried about the deductible but don’t usually come close to paying it. True, some people go to the clinic all the time for little things and others have serious ongoing issues they have to get treated.
Probably marked down to $50 I’d imagine.
“In my rural area we gauge shopping by ebt fillup days. The small family owned market with the best in store butcher meat market in the county stocks up the lowest price cuts in the mega family packs the day before ebt day.”
Is this a story from years ago? I thought states had gone to staggered EBT disbursement dates all across the month.
“People have no money to spend. We see restaurants going out all the time.”
It just depends on your location. You mentioned Atlanta. I am somewhere else. Here, new restaurants are sprouting up like tumbleweeds (we have lots of those, too), and people spend money on new cars, remodelling, big boys’ toys. etc. The population is growing and they can’t find land for new schools.
Or maybe people have decided that they have enough “stuff.”
Where is here?
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