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America's 'Retail Apocalypse' Is Really Just Beginning (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: The so-called retail apocalypse has become so ingrained in the U.S. that it now has the distinction of its own Wikipedia entry. The industry's response to that kind of doomsday description has included blaming the media for hyping the troubles of a few well-known chains as proof of a systemic meltdown. There is some truth to that. In the U.S., retailers announced more than 3,000 store openings in the first three quarters of this year. But chains also said 6,800 would close. And this comes when there's sky-high consumer confidence, unemployment is historically low and the U.S. economy keeps growing. Those are normally all ingredients for a retail boom, yet more chains are filing for bankruptcy and rated distressed than during the financial crisis. That's caused an increase in the number of delinquent loan payments by malls and shopping centers. The reason isn't as simple as Amazon.com Inc. taking market share or twenty-somethings spending more on experiences than things. The root cause is that many of these long-standing chains are overloaded with debt -- often from leveraged buyouts led by private equity firms. There are billions in borrowings on the balance sheets of troubled retailers, and sustaining that load is only going to become harder -- even for healthy chains. The debt coming due, along with America's over-stored suburbs and the continued gains of online shopping, has all the makings of a disaster. The spillover will likely flow far and wide across the U.S. economy. There will be displaced low-income workers, shrinking local tax bases and investor losses on stocks, bonds and real estate. If today is considered a retail apocalypse, then what's coming next could truly be scary.
Where are they? Hm?
Need I say more?
Trump should give everybody in America a million Trump-Bucks, then the problem would be solved.
This sort of thing happens. Going to my local K-Mart is like returning back to the 90s, and there always seems to be more staff than customers...and do we really need 6 aisles stocked with toilet paper? Sears is a prime example of the old horse and buggy industry doing what they can to discourage the use of automobiles without every trying to adjust to changing times.
Who could have guessed that the way things are 20 years ago aren't going to be the way things are in 20 years?
I mean, that's never happened before.
I gotta go out to the hitching post and clean up after my horse...
"...There are billions in borrowings on the balance sheets of troubled retailers...The debt coming due, along with America's over-stored suburbs and the continued gains of online shopping, has all the makings of a disaster."
Thousands of balloon/ARM mortgages approved for unqualified borrowers also had all the makings of a disaster back in 2008 too.
There's a common trait in the human race that spans thousands of years; a propensity to never fucking learn.
And over-stored is right. It's ridiculous just how many damn choices there are within a mile-long stretch of suburbia. No wonder so many are closing.
Stores are suffering because real disposable income is dropping, while fixed costs are growing.
Only easy credit will fix that, which is just starting, assuming no stock crash. The delay is because all those new jobs are either self employed cleaners or a shitty part time insecure min wage yob. History shows real estate should climb over the next 6 years before the mother of all crashes in 2022. Printing money then will fail, because 50% of teh stores customers took a 50% real spending cut. This indicates impuse buy stores will be hit the hardest.
Here's the thing - I'm old. Not ancient, but middle-aged. So I'm probably not expected by younger people to be comfortable with the latest technologies and customs, right?
Except when I'm buying things I check Chinese websites first, because the stuff I could buy from a local retailer is generally 1/3 the cost if I get it direct from China, and it's generally the same damn item, only with a lot of unnecessary middle-men removed from the equation. Cutting out a couple of warehouses, an extra trip on a truck, and a whole chain of office and retail workers saves quite a bit of overhead.
For me that's usually just low end electronics stuff that'll fit in an international mail envelope, but there's all sorts of other stuff, too. Hell, you can get tailored clothing for the price of local off-the-rack stuff.
Retail is having the same issue the cable television industry is having - the economics have changed and they haven't found a way to adapt. I don't need to drive to a big box store or a mall to pay 300% more for something when with a bit of patience it comes to my house for a lot less.
Too many choices when most want only a few.
So 6000 people lose jobs, across the nation thatâ(TM)s not that bad especially given that most of those can easily find spots in other retail stores.
The problem is lack of service, how many times can you try to go to Sears only to find a long line at the single cashier and nobody to help you with anything. Then whenever you have a $5 discount, the entire companyâ(TM)s management needs to be involved in approving it. Then returning it is an entire level of Danteâ(TM)s Inferno unto its own.
Newegg/Amazon will ship you at the discounted price and if youâ(TM)re not happy with it take it back no questions asked.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
I think the biggest change is that we are no longer really looking for stores, but showrooms. We need a place where we can go and look at the products, touch them, see if they do what they are meant to do. Then we can buy them online. These showrooms may have some small stock but their revenue will be from renting space to the company to showcase their products.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I know I run a small soda fountain pharmacy and I find that my customers (which cross nearly all age and racial categories) seem to prefer our knowledgeable and caring staff that somehow provides more service while charging less. Maybe consumers are learning that big box stores don't actually care about them. Just my perspective.
What's the ratio of Trump Bucks to Stanley Nickels?
there is a tremendous amount of real estate consumed by retail outlets, which frankly are of far diminished use than in previous decades. if someone can order something on Amazon and get it delivered to their door in a day or two, there's little reason to get in the car and drive to a store. this works well for a huge chunk of your average person's shopping.
in terms of the employment impact: those affected skew young or low income. and the jobs aren't merely shifted to a different country or location -- most of them are no longer necessary at all. for now, at least, most warehouses and shipping hubs rely on human labor, but that work represents a small fraction of the manpower a proportional retail store would have employed.
it's a problem, but in my opinion, likely a short-term one. i foresee a dramatic upswing in remote, online employment across the board, as online communication and interaction tools mature, and a willing and capable labor pool emerges -- a pool of young people to whom this technology is as effortless and natural as walking.
an optimist might even suggest that this would allow people to more easily aspire to niche occupations and careers that they would have otherwise been unlikely to achieve due to geography. In the past, if you wanted to work in the pinball industry, you had to live in Chicago. If your passion was recording music, you'd almost have to move to Los Angeles or NYC to make a living at it.
Today, there are artists who draw playfields for Stern Pinball without setting foot in Chicago. and my brother does mixing and mastering remotely over the internet for people all over the world.
just like those brick and mortar sales, the job market isn't going away. it's just going online.
i could live a little longer in this prison
Apple stores are doing just fine. But Apple stores are about the experience, much like a movie. Going to Sears or Target or Walmart is like taking a dump. You have to do it so just get it over with and get back to your life.
One reason restaurants are still hot is because they can be an experience. If more small retailers began to understand that it's not about inventory it's about the experience maybe we can get things turned around. Adding things like customer education (advice on accessories for clothing, for example), and of course competent employees (who are actually permitted to help the customer) are always welcome too.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
I blame Brexit ... oh wait!
If the going is good why not expand. Bacteria do it, humans do it, companies do it, shares dealers do it. Once the border of the petry dish is reached a collapse or correction occurs. There is a desire to get out of the boost/bust cycle but similar to forest fires - keeping small ones away makes the next one an all destroying monster fire. In a sense boost moment is just a point where a heap of crap collected for quite some time exceeds its physical capacity to hold together and collapses. The question is: at what point you intervene and how (that are 2 questions actually). Completely preventing them you can - by enforcing a regime like in NK I suppose that works too only for limited length of time.
You compared prices in foreign countries not on par with labor in your own.
You subverted Tariffs that would have protected domestic value to an appreciable degree.
You bought something of casual or leisurely nature, ignoring the state of the arts locally around.
I was guilty of these upto the Year 2012, when I realized the divide in value concerns durrability and a service industry; I can dumster-dive and repair damaged chassis and component form-factor products and commit an equal exchange to boot; tha's all we can do, work from home, to correct the problem since nobody can industrially compete to the international economic violenve that China commits against Americans & Affricas, and Eurapeons.
On the weekends, Costco usually has 10 lanes of cash registers with 10 people in line each, with baskets loaded to the top, followed by long long lines to pass by receipt checkers to exit the building...The downfall of "retail" isn't all about Amazon.com and online clicks, it also includes the rise of these warehouse stores that sell superior quality produce and products (except for their accidentally unauthorized jewelry and slightly obsolete electronics) as well as buying basic household goods in bulk to reduce cost in a country that has had depressed wages for twenty years. Because of the lower overhead, warehouse stores can be a much cheaper way to buy things than ordering online from Amazon and still offer some of the seasonal and local customizations that Department stores once did.
Trade them all for bison dollars. After I kidnap their queen each one will worth five British pounds,
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Or hot dogs... "They'd be so abundant, they'd become our currency! 20 hot dogs would equal roughly a nickel. Depending on the strength of the yen, I'm not quite sure, but...you know what, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's just keep praying that we can clone one of these hot dogs."
If the going is good why not expand. Bacteria do it, humans do it, companies do it, shares dealers do it.
One of these things is not like the other.
When ruthless Greed is compared to mindless bacteria that only know how to do one fucking thing, the real disease that will destroy us, is Ignorance.
One would have thought the most advanced species on the planet would be more capable of preventing it's own destruction. Guess not.
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
>>... unemployment is historically low...
Total bollocks. It's only listed that way because the feds lie about how they count unemployment.
If you include the total, real world number of those who have been out of work for longer than a year, forced to work part time, and those on public assistance, the number is in the double digits.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
We've had it drummed into us for for decades that capitalism ensures the survival of the fittest businesses.
Those businesses that over exposed themselves, made bad business, over leveraged themselves will disappear and be replaced by businesses that have been more prudent.
So why has this suddenly become a problem?
There is a lot more retail floor space per capita in the US than either the EU or Japan. 5 times the retail space is not sustainable long term. Many retail workers will suffer but one way or the other the floor space will be reduced. I would guess in the end the US will still have a higher number when this shrinking is done given its large areas of low population. Free enterprise works but the result often hurts people especially in the short term. It is better this happens in a strong economy it gives those affected a better chance of less disruption of their lives.
... I buy things on the internet that I thinki Wal-Mart wouldn't stock like rare card games or cheap cables of any sort.
If Wal-Mart simply stocked cheap USB cables, etc they would get tons of business from that alone. Even if it were a loss leader!!
Lee Holman and Greg Buzak authored a report published in August of this year: "Debunking the Retail Apocalypse" in which they stated:
" Over 4,850 more stores are opening than closing among big chains, and when smaller retailers are included the net gain is well over 10,000 new stores. As well, through the first seven months of the year, retail sales are up $122 billion, an amount roughly equivalent to the total annual retail sales of The Netherlands.â"
Get the full report at:
http://www.centromarca.pt/fold...
So, tell us what you are doing to divorce yourself from human nature?
It is not just retailers overloaded with debt, it is the American people overloaded with debt. Reduction in unemployment does not mean a person instantly has excess cash to spend frivolously. I'm still in debt from 2010 and have not been able to find a full-time direct hire job since then, nothing but contract work and lower pay. To top it all off, while buried in debt ObamaCare came along and forced me to take on a $200/month bill or else face a $850/year fine, neither of which I can afford. I won't be out of debt until 2030 at this rate, THANKS OBAMA!
It's not about learning - that was the whole business model! This is how it works:
There's a common trait in the human race that spans thousands of years; a propensity to never fucking learn.
What did people learn from the 2008 financial crisis? Well, that people who make irresponsible loans can make a lot of money doing so. Why wouldn't they do it again as soon as possible?
The thing is, deep down we are "genes" that want to spread. For billions of years we learned how to spread as bacteria, becoming multi-cellular is somewhat of a new trick much less becoming brained.
What I find funny is that the retail crunch is brought upon by the stores themselves. For example, if a store had a good name and was known for a quality aspect, then starts pays their employees minimum wage, replaces their high quality tools with whatever the Chinese OEM makes, goes from top tier appliances with good parts and repair to cheap, disposable items, they are now competing against the discount stores... and the discount stores know their stuff and will eat their lunch.
The ironic part is the pittance workers get paid. If you pay people cheaply, expect them to buy cheap stuff, and not what you are selling. Henry Ford understood this way back when. With retail shops paying minimum wage, it is no wonder why nobody can afford their stuff and go shopping at Wal-Mart or Amazon. Plus, with low pay comes a poor attitude, which turns away customers. Pay people a livable income, and they will actually be interested in helping the company get/retain customers.
Realistically, I've had no need to visit retail chains in a long while. If I want/need something specific, I hit the Amazon link. For groceries, I hit a local store like Kroger's. If I need basic supplies, Wal-Mart and Target are good enough. Plus, why fight the soccer moms and the middle school kids looking to pop tires and key vehicles at the mall when I can order what I need while at work, then have it delivered. With the Amazon key system, I give access to my garage's side door, which allows stuff to be delivered there without worrying about the security of the rest of my place. Why do I need to waste gas and fight traffic, when whatever I need can be delivered? In fact, I don't have to worry about staples like toilet paper or other items, as they are delivered on a schedule?
Had places like Sears and such kept their good names by not moving their manufacturing to China, treated their workers like garbage, and kept their service and parts departments up to par, it would be a different story. However, by going cheap, Sears tried to compete with Wal-Mart and Target... and got their butts kicked.
Sears needs to re-organize. The Craftsman name is lost, but they could make another line of tools which are on par with MAC or Snap-On, and after a few years, the tools will speak for themselves and earn a reputation. They need to stop treating retail workers like garbage and pay them something sane, so there is some interest in staying at the company. They need to offer items which are so notable, people will explicitly order them. Find cool things from crowdsourcing places. Offer to fund them. Stuff that will get people to actually say it is cool and worth looking at. Focus on strong points. Sears used to have some pretty awesome brands, where I could find parts for something 10-20 years after the sale. Go back to that. People don't want crap that has to be thrown away and replaced anymore.
The metric "unemployment is historically low" is a deceptive measure in the context of retail health. What that metric accounts for are citizens collecting unemployment benefits within a six month period. Once they exhaust the six months and they still have not found work, that metric does not include them.
Politicians love to use such a report to claim that "unemployment is historically low" when in fact there are other metrics from the BLS that uncover the true story. According to this document, it states that the labor force participation rate has decreased little in the past 12 months and to date that 95 million citizens - regardless of whether they are collecting benefits - are not in the labor force which is actually almost 40% unemployment. THAT is the elephant in the room no one wants to talk about. Retail is suffering because there is a huge sector of unemployed citizens who don't have the disposable income they used to, thus they are unable to patronize stores.
Tear down the zombie strip malls and rezone the properties for apartments/condos.
"Free" health care.
"Free" college.
That's the Democrat way...
What, you don't like free stuff?
I'm male, 6' with a 44" waist and 32" leg and size 12 feet. When I go to the store, they have 2-3 items in my size in a style I'd never pick (orange or bright colors). Shoes have gotten better in the last 5 years.
I can go online, enter my sizes and pick from a variety of similar clothes in different brands with multiple colors. I don't have to drive 20 minutes or more to the retail stores.
I buy tools, parts, supplies online too. They're in stock and the model I want. For some things, shipping makes it cost more, but they're few and far between. There is nothing worse than wasting an hour driving to the store and finding the part you need isn't there.
I remember doing this with mail order when that peaked in the 80s-90s. Web is better than that.
I don't know what the solution is for retail. Unlike men, woman need to try clothes on. I don't see groceries losing out to online either.
Sears kicked ass for years because they owned their own real estate and they were able to offer competitive prices. They'd already have gone under if they hadn't kept their trucking fleet, although they had to change the name on the side of the trucks because nobody wanted to see a Sears truck.
They were already failing before they started selling real estate, though, which they started doing specifically because they couldn't cover their operating expenses otherwise. And they were failing not because they couldn't compete with the internets, but because they didn't try. They compromised customer service, which was what got people through the door. They also compromised quality, for instance Craftsman tools have been going downhill for years. So why would you bother to go in there?
I also wonder how much money Sears has spent on their agonizingly awful e-commerce site. It does tend to carry pretty much everything, but it has pretty much everything at the highest prices anywhere. When you add to this the fact that it's one of the worst sites on the interwebs, it's easy to see why nobody uses it.
I, for one, fell out of love with Sears years ago, when I was just getting acquainted with powered yard equipment and found that they wanted about 400% of reasonable parts prices. More recently, I had a problem with them not wanting to honor a warranty. Sears changes model numbers on products which haven't actually changed every year so that they don't have any stock to make warranty replacements with, so that they can dick you around. Is that really cheaper than just doing business properly? Who knows. But fuck 'em.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"Free" health care.
"Free" college.
That's the Democrat way...
"Free" health care.
"Free" college.
That's the Democrat way...
Nope. The complaints about Democrats are that they MADE people pay for health care and MADE people pay for college with loans and expectations of degree completion. That they subject people to regulation, obligation and control.
Whereas Republicans have provided bailout money with no expectations or demands, and even opposed enforcing contractual requirements. They've also sought to remove liability and eliminate accountability. They're the party of welfare and irresponsibility.
You're through the looking glass now, enjoy the perspective, but watch out, don't cut yourself on the shards.
If we are going to save these retail jobs we need more corporate tax breaks, and we need to cut the top tier individual tax rate down to 14%, that will spur the economy.
In 2004, Malcolm Gladwell accelerated depreciation as to why so many malls were built in the first place. I just now added this to the Wikipedia article.
the goal isnt an equal exchange of anykind, but export U.S. currencies that only facilitate land purchase.
This is the same when some fool buys any street drug; COPS cause the highest export of U.S. currencies when they punnish and liquidate domestic streetdrugs from preventing those U.S. currencies exported to Mexico and Columbia.
I hope retail lasts a while. Not because I particularly like shopping in person, but because online shopping is creepy from a privacy perspective. You have to use electronic payment and tie purchases to your identity and address. Meaning that the profile that retailers, marketeers, governments, and health insurers have on you gets even bigger.
Even if you have nothing to hide, assuming price restrictions and community rating on health insurance are repealed, how long before health insurers start billing you based on the food, drinks, and snacks you buy? The data will be out there and available to everyone who can buy it -- US has weak data-protection laws.
Fortunately, I'm moving to a part of my city that has a strong cash economy (due to immigrant population), so retail won't die there for another 30+ years...
There aren't a lot of choices. There are strip mall after strip mall filled with Old Navy, Bed, Bath, and Beyond, Chili's, Petco, Kohl's and Starbucks. The spaces in between are punctuated with Target, Walmart, Home Depot, and Lowe's. The whole thing is peppered with some CVS and Walgreens. City to city, state to state, it's all the same shit. They build bigger and "better" stores, but the increased shelf space isn't used to carry more variety, it's used to hold more of the same shit they already had, but spread out more. It's the distinct lack of choice that's driving people away.
There must be 3 different starbucks knockoffs in my area... seriously?
love is just extroverted narcissism
Fixed the title for the European consumers of Slashdot title lines. I assume a "neo-communist" is near a libertarian in the US political spectrum. What he did lose by importing the goods himself are his consumer rights, something he might not care much about dealing with low-valued items.
I've seen that some once thriving area's are now shrinking - people have moved to new areas. And maybe those stores need to close.
It feels more like Refactoring. Close the ones that aren't working and open new ones that will work.
Economics says that this will take care of itself. I don't think Amazon is the cause. Yes - Sears has done a lot to hurt itself. But they started out as a catalog store - able to service areas without having to build a giant store. And many feel they failed to react quickly enough to changing landscape.
As for being a made up media hype - could be. But I don't read the news anymore. It's all fake... right?!
As has been the norm for several decades now, as a generalization most things are made in China for next to nothing. This and globalization has been a boon for retailers for a long time, in that they buy from said dirt cheap retailers, import the products, mark it up 5000% all for fun and profit. Fast forward to the inevitable result of sustained globalization combined with advances in online markets, and you have consumers with other options. Basically the same crap but without the 5000% markup. Now the slight markup for profit exists at the point of origin, or at an online clearinghouse such as Amazon or others, who more often than not just let the seller mark it up, and they take a percentage for using these online services and branding.
I mean it was different when there were different products of greater quality, but for large retailers that more less doesn't exist anymore. The small guys, that exist in the quality brand niche, will do just fine, as there will always be a demand for that, so long as that quality divide exists and people are willing to pay for it. However it is pretty easy, and has happened to me, and everyone else really, where you see a product on a shelf of a retailer that is the EXACT same product, cheaply re-branded with a stamp, or box, or whatever as a product on some Chinese website for about 1/10 or 1/20th the cost. About the only drawback is that you need to wait for it, but I think many people are willing to do exactly just that. Even now, the postal and distribution services are cutting that down every year.
Bottom line, is they had it good for a long time, but in the end you reap what you sow, and the chickens are coming home to roost.
Anyway it doesn't effect all retailers the same way, as certain product types are less impacted.
Almost like Ikea but without the checkout.
Thats a great idea.
Sometimes when buying online I wish I could view it in person first. I guess I'm already doing that at brick and mortar stores but they just don't have everything I'm looking for.
Personal services and the shopping experience. Make buying something entertaining.
What about the side of the curve that is never shown. Tax revenues falling on the right side of the curve so far that potholes get proper nouns for names.
...and David Stockman, in his book, The Great Deformation, points out repeatedly the dangers of leveraged buyouts and the coming consequences of those buyouts.
E Proelio Veritas.
There's a common trait in the human race that spans thousands of years; a propensity to never fucking learn
It's hard when you keep dying. A person learns something, then he dies so his descendants forget it. That's why writing (imo) is the most significant technology of all history.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
"Dumb" jobs are getting automated and you DON'T want to deport 3rd world citizens with no job skills? You want MORE of them? To what end?
One would have thought the most advanced species on the planet would be more capable of preventing it's own destruction. Guess not.
I used to hope for human survival, enlightenment, that we'd overcome our flaws and evolve into something better. After the past year I no longer hold out such hope, nor do I want the misogynistic, racist, homophobic, bigoted scum that so many of us are to survive. It is fitting that they are the authors of their own extinction through global climate change denial and public policies that eviscerate their own economic base and chances for long-term survival.
The only tragedy is that the rest of us are being taken down with them, but that is perhaps a small price to pay in order to clear a path for a more deserving species to step in and fill our niche. I just hope the end isn't too painful for myself and those I love.
I think that retailers seem to be trying to reduce their inventory and as a result they no longer stock a wide enough variety of products to keep the customers coming to the store. I think there is a feedback loop here that the PHBs (Pointy Hair Bosses) don't understand. When I go to a store and want to buy something that they no longer carry and that I can't find elsewhere locally, I order it on line and usually never look for it from a local store again. I think a lot of people are doing this and this is at least one factor driving local retail stores out of business.
Wow. For a fairly active topic with lots of room for interesting comments, I am still amazed at how low Slashdot has sunk.
Not ONE comment moderated as funny. In my admittedly mostly random searching, I couldn't even find an attempt at humor.
Only 5 moderated as insightful. That should be a surprise, too, but it's worn out. Even less surprising that the insights were spread between trivial and imaginary.
So I considered where as-yet-unmoderated "insight" should lie. Obviously "profit" is involved. Only 5 mentions, but nothing insightful there. Another key aspect would involve "efficiency", but that didn't get a single mention.
Maybe there's something hidden in the AC stuff I can't see (without lots of favorable mods)? I doubt it.
In conclusion, there are some insights on the interesting topic, but why would I invest the time seeking (or sharing) them on Slashdot?
I always prefer to close on a positive note, but even that seems too pointless now. Search for the #1 problem that deserves the highest priority? I've already noted (repeatedly) that it's the financial model, but the borken (sic.) moderation is also not helping.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Damned millennials and their fidget spinners killing all the things...
Apocalypse
The concept of a prophetic revelation
An apocalypse (Ancient Greek: apokálypsis, from and , literally meaning "an uncovering") is a disclosure of knowledge or revelation. In religious contexts it is usually a disclosure of something hidden, "a vision of heavenly secrets that can make sense of earthly realities".
Do you trust information from ignorant writers that persistently use wrong words?
I give you a billion Trump leprechaun brains for one Stanley Unicorn Ivory toothpick.
And those who cannot be counted as umemployed because they've failed to get a job in 6 months are off the charts. Literally. Real unemployment is about 18%. Retail is failing because nobody has any money to spare.
One would have thought the most advanced species on the planet would be more capable of preventing it's own destruction. Guess not.
The mice are doing just fine, and are still looking for the question.
First law of people: People are generally stupid.
*Drives down to mall*. Medium Coffee: $1 million Trump Bucks. Dammit!
I kind of view economies as being on a continuum between capitalism on one end and socialism/communism on the other. This is maybe not the best way to view them, but I am no economist.
Having said that, what do you call a market that is capitalistic in nature but strongly bound by lots and lots of governmental regulation? Also where some market components (I'm thinking infrastructure, here) are owned by the government?
I call it Keynesian, but there was a lot more to his thinking than that.
a propensity to never fucking learn.
Who needs to learn? Most of the folk generally considered to have influenced or caused the crash in 2008 made out like bandits. And those same people are currently lobbying to remove the protections Obama put in place to try and prevent another such crash, which they'll probably succeed at (and I think already have partly) given how much Trump loves undoing everything Obama did, without knowing or caring about the purposes for any particular regulation -- simply having Obama's name on it is enough for Trump to hate it.
The people I'm talking about did learn. They learned that they can get rich off of the suffering of the masses, and then when that goes belly up they learned that the government will give them another $700bn to try and undo all of the problems they caused, much of which they also just pocketed.
All us average people with no political and almost no economic influence have learned is that those people are scum who will happily screw over the entire world for a dollar, and that there's pretty much fuck all we can do about it when they try again.
TIL that the behaviour of totalitarian states is how you measure socialism. I thought they were different things. Silly of me.
capcha: anarchy. (Am now vastly amused.)
I bought a 4K monitor and the single bad pixel was immediately and obviously apparent. I sent it back.
If there's one thing that makes my blood boil, it's monitors with visual defects. I can only assume that all you people happy with your defective monitors have eye defects. You could get your spectacles fixed and improve everything you see.
He's going to believe really really hard that humans are blank slates to be molded to societies whim, like a good libtard.
That worked like a charm when they closed the sears hardware by me. Everything was long gone by the time the real discounts appeared.
[sigh] I remember when Sears Canada sold hardware. Good quality Craftman hand tools and power tools. Then sometime in the late 1990s, all the Sears stores in Canada seemed to drop their great hardware and tools, and from there it was a competitive race to the bottom selling appliances (against Best Buy, Leons, Bad Boy, The Brick, Home Depot, Lowe's) and women's fashions (against the rest of the tenants in the shopping mall).
Sears, at one point, couldn't be beat. It used to be that if Sears sold it under the Kenmore name, it was good stuff with top-notch after-sale support. It used to be that if Sears sold it under the Craftsman name, it was good stuff... again, with top-notch after-sale support. By staff who gave a shit. And a great house brand is unbeatable in retail: you never have to price match the Kenmore against the Whirlpool which rolled off the same assembly line, and Kenmore had more brand recognition and brand admiration than the company that actually made it.
Hell, isn't Craftsman-style architecture literally named after Sears mail-order house kits?
Part of the problem might be the way the Sears Electronics 12" black-and-white TV I had was made in Korea in 1978 by a little company no one had ever heard of. It was great quality, great price, served me well for many years. Being an electronics geek kid I took the lid off and found a now-familiar name on the label on the picture tube and the chassis: Samsung. Likewise, an Eaton Viking (Canadian house-brand, now defunct Eatons Department Stores) TV had Gold Star labels everywhere - You know that manufacturer now as Lucky Gold Star - LG. Apple should take note of its relationship with Foxconn.
I've also got to give Sears a shoutout for one particular piece of AMAZING customer service. In the 1980s, as a kid on my paper route, I found a classic 1950s Sears Craftsman lawnmower. The deck was cast aluminum, the engine was two-stroke, and I managed to get it running almost immediately, it was built like a tank and almost could have mowed down the annoying fire hydrant on your lawn. I copied down the model number, went to my local Sears store just to ask about it. Two weeks later, a large manila envelope showed up at my place, return address was Chicago. Inside, copied from microfiche, was the entire Owner's Manual and Service Manual for that 1951 Craftsman lawnmower. That lawnmower (with that envelope tucked under the deck) now hangs restored in an automotive museum.
Sears Canada is finally officially dying. But I've missed them for years. I wish nothing but the best for the rest of Sears, they always provided a great product with great support at at fair price for both parties.
Thank you, Sears Canada. I loved you.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Massive tax breaks and shipping subsidies reek of deregulation. It's easier to have taxes for all companies, but do make them slightly lower. Then remove taxes that are barriers to entry in a market. (if that ever happens in the U.S., ha!)
The other issues are, that it's probably become impossible to do business and pay tax honestly in the United States, if filing even a 1040 is difficult for one person, with heavy penalties even for small errors in filing, and when so many large corporations park their money outside the U.S. (it's bad from the U.S. standpoint, but if taxes are onerous, then it's great business anyway).
Wow, this was written by the only OTHER person on the planet who seems to know that the massive recession and housing crash is on its way. May 2019. Hear me now and prepare, or believe me later and be caught in it like everyone else.
...has included blaming the media for hyping the troubles of a few well-known chains as proof of a systemic meltdown.
So, retail store closings are "fake news", too? Just like Papa John's sales slump is do to inmates being allowed to run the asylum?
One of the side-effects of the Trump administration's putting so many rich people in the public spotlight is that it has demonstrated what supremely arrogant, whiny, spoiled brats they are. They're your businesses, you lazy-ass, entitled fuck-sticks. Take some responsibility. If you can't figure out how to manage them through a changing market, then you deserve to lose them.
Maybe people are more reluctant to spend their weekends wandering like zombies around shops to buy some Chinese-made junk that they could have bought online in half the time and half the price. Maybe I shop in the wrong places but I rarely have interactions with shop staff that make the mark-ups worth it.
There is a need to tax empty property heavily to avoid such behaviour, a change which local communities could easily introduce.
There must be 3 different starbucks knockoffs in my area... seriously?
When it comes to the bean-sucking masses who insist they don't have an addiction problem, there's not much to say.
The strongest drug in the world is denial.