# J.C.Pennys, Sears and the Rest of the Real Economy



## Denton (Sep 18, 2012)

Two major retailers for the Common Man are shutting down a lot of stores and laying a lot of people off. The reason is clear; the Common Man has less money to spend. Best Buy got clobbered by this Christmas season. Online shopping was nothing what they were hoping. All this, yet the Dow is continuing to climb. Amazing. There is quite the disconnect, it seems. Meanwhile, did you see the number of able-bodied adults without children who are on welfare, today? It doesn't matter to the mainstream media as they are sounding no alarms. Rather, they continue to tout the recovery that so many people are not feeling.

This article is worth the read, and the point made at the end is a point we preppers need to keep in mind. We will be blamed and looted.

On Borrowed Time: "They're Going to Turn the Blame Directly on You"


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## Deebo (Oct 27, 2012)

Yeah, Its wierd, my "stock package" is way down, like Negative 3 percent, while the Dow is climbing?


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## Deebo (Oct 27, 2012)

I guess I am to blame. How dare me, putting away 19% of my pretax income into a 401k program..
How dare me to actually buy cases of food instead of single can prices.
How dare me actually try to make it on my own, with no assistance from the government.


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## Inor (Mar 22, 2013)

I agree with the end result of your (and the linked article's) assessment. However, I do not agree with how you got there. In my arrogant opinion, using retail sales numbers to judge the health of the economy is just as much a fool's errand as using the DOW numbers. 

Note: Please forgive me because what precipitated this rant is using Best Buy as an example. Best Buy is a company that I hate as much as the devil hates Holy water. I worked for them developing cash register software in the late 1980's back when they were still a privately held company. They had 40 stores when I started with them and about 110 when I left, just to give you a sense of how long ago that was. But even back then, their profit margins relied as much on "political pull" as it did on successful business practices. Even back then, their entire corporate culture was based on beating the competition by getting special favors from local politicians. The sooner they collapse the better as far as I am concerned. That company is the perfect example of a "looter corporation" from an Ayn Rand novel.

Anyway, back to the main point of my response... The only objective way that I think we can measure the success or failure of the economy is by how many goods we produce. Using that measure we suck on ice! However, I do agree with some of the "modern" economists that we need to expand the traditional measures of production to include intellectual property. In other words, I do think it is accurate to include creating intellectual products like software and drug patents in the overall measure of the creation of goods for our economy. 

But even with those expanded measures, our economy is still absolutely anemic. Furthermore, given that creating intellectual products assumes that we have workers with some level of intellectual capability, it does not seem to me that we are going to reverse course anytime soon.


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## Smitty901 (Nov 16, 2012)

Agree with a lot of what has been said. Company I currently work for cut 1/3 of the work force 6000 jobs sense Obama reelection.
Online sales don't help other business either . Nothing but ware houses with few employees located often over seas. Just acting as a broker. Often they don't even have the product they just broker the sale. Some time you save a dime but in the end no support no local store front to go into.
Life is changing


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## alterego (Jan 27, 2013)

My company has several branches, when O jig way took office we were employing 250 +- in our area of Michigan, We are now keeping a various crew between 30 and 50. 

My weekly deducts for insurance from my pay checks are 205% of the day that the affordable health care law was signed into law.

We have not received any raises since 2009. The company has re nigged on several of the reimbursements and benefits they used to offer the office employee's

I am very happy to have my job as I believe the unemployment rate to be 26% in Michigan.

It stuns me how our government and the population does not resent the changes, but are embrasing them, we are traveling further down the path of no return. Unbelievable.


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## Smitty901 (Nov 16, 2012)

Deebo said:


> I guess I am to blame. How dare me, putting away 19% of my pretax income into a 401k program..
> How dare me to actually buy cases of food instead of single can prices.
> How dare me actually try to make it on my own, with no assistance from the government.


 You will be dealt with, we can not have this.


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## dwight55 (Nov 9, 2012)

I would like to say "when the American society as a whole again becomes self determining, . . . instead of allowing govt to take care of them", . . . then we will get back on track.

The unfortunate truth of our present society, however, replaces the "when" with the word "if".

And quite frankly, . . . I don't think it will happen. More and more I see people who are not "perfectly able" just decide that they have enough to make the barely qualified edge of disability, . . . and off they go into TV, Cheeto's, and couch potato land. No more producers, . . . just leech / consumers. 

AND, . . . is there a cure? Personally, . . . I don't know of one.

Therefore, . . . prep, . . . put away, . . . get ready, . . . reload, . . . 

May God bless,
Dwight


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## Ripon (Dec 22, 2012)

The chatter of tapering off that $85 billion a month in new money is just talk right now; it hasn't happened yet, and while its happening that money has to go some where. I wouldn't want to be in stocks right now. But I also don't think much of PM's as an investment. Fortunately none of that matters to me for what little I have to invest is better put into ammo components.


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## Denton (Sep 18, 2012)

Inor said:


> I agree with the end result of your (and the linked article's) assessment. However, I do not agree with how you got there. In my arrogant opinion, using retail sales numbers to judge the health of the economy is just as much a fool's errand as using the DOW numbers.
> 
> Note: Please forgive me because what precipitated this rant is using Best Buy as an example. Best Buy is a company that I hate as much as the devil hates Holy water. I worked for them developing cash register software in the late 1980's back when they were still a privately held company. They had 40 stores when I started with them and about 110 when I left, just to give you a sense of how long ago that was. But even back then, their profit margins relied as much on "political pull" as it did on successful business practices. Even back then, their entire corporate culture was based on beating the competition by getting special favors from local politicians. The sooner they collapse the better as far as I am concerned. That company is the perfect example of a "looter corporation" from an Ayn Rand novel.
> 
> ...


I agree with you, 100%, and what you are suggesting is complimentary to this article. The article is seeing it from the retail point of view, rather than the manufacturing, and pointing out that unemployed people aren't able to make many unnecessary purchases. Those retailers that target the working class in a nation of unemployed and underemployed workers are not going to fare very well. As they close doors, even more people get placed on the unemployed rolls.

So, what happens when the debt scheme crumbles apart? The government already has the plans. Stocked pantries are considered hoarding, and gold/silver savings are to be turned over along with the weapons.


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## Denton (Sep 18, 2012)

Regardless of what you think of him, Pat Buchanan wrote a very interesting article on the 14th (I just saw it a few minutes ago), about how congress is allowing the nation to be run over.



> Today, Congress first surrendered to the executive the authority to negotiate trade deals, and then passed fast track, denying itself the right to amend those treaties. Congress has restricted itself to a yes or no vote on what the executive negotiates.
> 
> The transnational corporations that finance campaigns are delighted.
> 
> But as a consequence of NAFTA, GATT, and the WTO, a third of U.S. manufacturing jobs and a huge slice of our manufacturing base have been shipped overseas, and we have run $10 trillion in trade deficits since Bush I.


I think it is hard to argue against his position on this:
Why Congress Is Held in Contempt on Creators.com


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## rice paddy daddy (Jul 17, 2012)

Where we live the economy certainly is not improving. The nearby town, pop 2,000, has had small businesses of years standing dissappear since Obama took office.
The next towns in either direction are the same.
On my daily commute into the city traffic is becoming less and less and has since 2008.
Harveys is a supermarket chain in the southeast, owned by the same company that drove Food Lion into the ground. Now they have closed a large Harveys distribution center near Jacksonville and 400 company truck drivers were laid off at Christmas - they have been replaced by outside contract drivers.
If the economy is improving, you can not prove it where we live.

My last raise came in 2006, and I have taken a 6% cut from THAT.


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## retired guard (Mar 7, 2013)

All sectors of the economy are doing fine except for those folks who work for a living.


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## Ripon (Dec 22, 2012)

This is very true. Think about it. The number of people who are not working has increased significantly and is now a nifty 35/40% voting block against those with work. Someone posted there are 80 hand out programs and we only talk about the obvious, and the biggest is not really a hand out but a horrible return on investment for the wealthy and a great return on limited investment for the poor - social security. If there really are 80 hand outs or payments to the non working in our country then "the chair is against the wall" and there isn't much we can do about it if we can't elect people that will reduce them, cause people to want to work instead of take them, and eliminate a few at a time.



retired guard said:


> All sectors of the economy are doing fine except for those folks who work for a living.


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## Denton (Sep 18, 2012)

Ripon said:


> This is very true. Think about it. The number of people who are not working has increased significantly and is now a nifty 35/40% voting block against those with work. Someone posted there are 80 hand out programs and we only talk about the obvious, and the biggest is not really a hand out but a horrible return on investment for the wealthy and a great return on limited investment for the poor - social security. If there really are 80 hand outs or payments to the non working in our country then "the chair is against the wall" and there isn't much we can do about it if we can't elect people that will reduce them, cause people to want to work instead of take them, and eliminate a few at a time.


Here's another thing to consider. Doing something to cause the people to want to work - there are those who are more than happy to not work. They shouldn't be paid to not work. Still, there are a couple other things that drive up unemployment that should be addressed.

Why, considering the number of unemployed citizens, are the borders not closed to immigration? Why the unabated flood of new people? Why are the corporations as well as the unions clamoring for this? It isn't for the benefit of our nation, that is for sure.

Speaking of corporations, as has been hashed and rehashed before, previous trade agreements have allowed manufacturing to leave the country, while agencies controlled by global corporations insure of an uphill battle for citizens who wish to start a competitive business in this country.

There are several factors creating our problems, but only a limited number are brought up in the media, and only through authorized talking points for public consumption. Why would that be? Because news and information is controlled by media groups, owned by corporations. When the corporations own and control information, the consuming public get no mental nutrition so that proper conclusions are possible.


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## Arizona Infidel (Oct 5, 2013)

I don't understand how the market is at all time highs. But I never understood what was the trigger causing the market to crash in 07. Oh, I know the common view was the housing market crash. But was it? I always found it interesting that it occurred RIGHT BEFORE an election that ushered in a president I would never in a thousand years imagined could win. 
I would love for someone someday investigate exactly what happened, just to know.


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## Slippy (Nov 14, 2013)

Arizona Infidel said:


> I don't understand how the market is at all time highs. But I never understood what was the trigger causing the market to crash in 07. Oh, I know the common view was the housing market crash. But was it? I always found it interesting that it occurred RIGHT BEFORE an election that ushered in a president I would never in a thousand years imagined could win.
> I would love for someone someday investigate exactly what happened, just to know.


AI
Regarding the Stock Markets being at highs...Please do your own research but it is my understanding that with the Feds printing their $85 or so billion per month and lending it to the institutional investors at next to nothing. Those institutional investors then can put that money into various entities; individual companies, mutual funds, etc. Think about it, $85 BILLION per month? Wow, it would take individual investors a lot of time to invest that. So, with the influx of this printed money comes a rise in expectations. Buy low, sell high, Fear and Greed, and a few other cliches really do apply to the aspects of the market...and wa-la we have this inflated boom.

The crash of 2007, started with approx. $1 Trillion in bad real estate loans. Just my simple understanding of it but please check further. 
Later,


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## Arizona Infidel (Oct 5, 2013)

I think it's interesting that it happened RIGHT BEFORE that election. It makes me a little curious. 
But I'm sure the govt. response of the collapse of the housing market that was fed to us was the real reason.:roll:
That's why so many businesses are still in decline with a market at 16.5.


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## slewfoot (Nov 6, 2013)

rice paddy daddy said:


> On my daily commute into the city traffic is becoming less and less and has since 2008.
> Harveys is a supermarket chain in the southeast, owned by the same company that drove Food Lion into the ground. Now they have closed a large Harveys distribution center near Jacksonville and 400 company truck drivers were laid off at Christmas - they have been replaced by outside contract drivers.
> If the economy is improving, you can not prove it where we live.
> 
> My last raise came in 2006, and I have taken a 6% cut from THAT.


Could be due too BI-LO, the parent company of Winn-Dixie has bought out Reid's, Harvey's and Sweetbay stores. The sale will be finalized in the first quarter of 2014.


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## Denton (Sep 18, 2012)

This is worth the read. 
THE RETAIL DEATH RATTLE « The Burning Platform


> The absolute collapse in retail visitor counts is the warning siren that this country is about to collide with the reality Americans have run out of time, money, jobs, and illusions. The most amazingly delusional aspect to the chart above is retailers continued to add 44 million square feet in 2013 to the almost 15 billion existing square feet of retail space in the U.S. That is approximately 47 square feet of retail space for every person in America. Retail CEOs are not the brightest bulbs in the sale bin, as exhibited by the CEO of Target and his gross malfeasance in protecting his customers' personal financial information. Of course, the 44 million square feet added in 2013 is down 85% from the annual increases from 2000 through 2008. The exponential growth model, built upon a never ending flow of consumer credit and an endless supply of cheap fuel, has reached its limit of growth. The titans of Wall Street and their puppets in Washington D.C. have wrung every drop of faux wealth from the dying middle class. There are nothing left but withering carcasses and bleached bones.


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## Inor (Mar 22, 2013)

Denton said:


> This is worth the read.
> THE RETAIL DEATH RATTLE « The Burning Platform


Excellent read Denton! Thanks!


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## Denton (Sep 18, 2012)

Inor said:


> Excellent read Denton! Thanks!


I'm here for you, buddy!


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