Retail apocalyse

A Global COLLAPSE Is Coming: U.S. Retailers Are ‘Mysteriously’ Cancelling Billions of Dollars of Orders

Posted by Lou on September 22, 2022
Posted in: Economic collapse, Economics, Recession, Retail apocalyse, USA. Leave a comment

“All of a sudden major retailers are feverishly canceling orders, and this would only make sense if a severe economic downturn was imminent,” journalist Micheal Snyder writes.

A common refrain from people who are critical of alternative economists is that we have been predicting crisis for so long that “eventually we will be right.” These are generally people who don’t understand the nature of economic decline – It’s like an avalanche that builds over time, then breaks and quickly escalates as it flows down the mountain.

Fact checked

A Global COLLAPSE Is Coming: U.S. Retailers Are ‘Mysteriously’ Cancelling Billions of Dollars of Orders

Sean Adl-Tabatabai

Sept 21, 2022

Walmart, Target, and dozens of other major U.S. retailers are canceling billions of dollars in orders ahead of the coming holiday season, according to reports.

The holiday season is usually the busiest time of year, and at this time in 2021, there were concerns the global supply chain couldn’t handle the demand.

But it’s the opposite in 2022.

“All of a sudden major retailers are feverishly canceling orders, and this would only make sense if a severe economic downturn was imminent,” journalist Micheal Snyder writes.

Walmart admitted that it has canceled “billions of dollars in orders” as the upcoming holiday season approaches.

Per Retail Wire:

John David Rainey, Walmart’s EVP and CFO, said it had cleared most summer inventory, was reducing exposure in electronics, home and sporting goods, and canceled “billions of dollars in orders” to realign inventories. He said, “Our actions in Q3 will allow us to make significant progress toward rationalizing absolute levels and mix, which will enable our stores to be well positioned ahead of the holiday season.”

Meanwhile, Target canceled “more than $1.5 billion” in orders.

Per End Time Headlines:

Christina Hennington, Target’s EVP and chief growth officer, said steps being taken by the discounter’s buying team include “rigorously reforecasting expectations for the balance of the year and beyond and determining where to reduce future receipts and orders.

Kohl’s and Under Armour have also canceled huge numbers of orders.

Footwear News reports:

Kohl’s has also pulled back on order receipts and increased promotions to get through an inventory glut.

“We have taken action to address inventory, including increasing promotions, being aggressive on clearing excess inventory and pulling back on receipts,” said Kohl’s CFO Jill Timm in a call with investors.

Under Armour also said it made some proactive cancellations due to supply chain constraints to ensure that “the right inventory was coming in at the right time,” said interim president and CEO Colin Browne in a call with investors.

FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam publicly warned that a massive recession is coming.

Snyder writes:

Sadly, he is right on target.

For months, I have been warning that the economic numbers were telling us that big trouble was on the way, and now everyone can see it.

But unlike the “Great Recession” of 2008 and 2009, this time we are also going to have to deal with raging inflation even as economic activity slows down all around us.

In fact, the Wall Street Journal is ominously warning that U.S. consumers “are set to pay even more this winter” as heating costs continue to soar to absolutely ridiculous levels…

U.S. utility customers, faced with some of their largest bills in years, are set to pay even more this winter as natural-gas prices continue to climb.

Natural-gas prices have more than doubled this year because of a global supply shortage made worse by the war in Ukraine, and they are expected to remain elevated for months as fuel is needed to light and heat homes during the winter. The supply crunch has made it substantially more expensive for utilities to purchase or produce power, and those costs are being passed on to customers.

The cost of living has been rising much faster than our paychecks have for quite some time now, and a lot more pain is on the horizon.

I really like how Brandon Smith recently summarized the current state of the U.S. economy…

A common refrain from people who are critical of alternative economists is that we have been predicting crisis for so long that “eventually we will be right.” These are generally people who don’t understand the nature of economic decline – It’s like an avalanche that builds over time, then breaks and quickly escalates as it flows down the mountain. What they don’t grasp is that they are in the middle of an economic collapse RIGHT NOW, and they just can’t see it because they have been acclimated to the presence of the snow and cold.

Economic decline is a process that takes many years, and while you might get an event like the market crash of 1929 or the crash of 2008, these moments of panic are nothing more than the wreckage left behind by the great wave of tumbling ice that everyone should have seen coming far in advance, but they refused.

That is so true.

We are already in the midst of a raging economic crisis, but things will get so much worse during the months and years to come.

Retail Apocalypse Continues: Dollar Tree Closing Up To 390 Stores

Posted by Lou on March 8, 2019
Posted in: Bankruptcy, Economic collapse, Economics, Retail apocalyse. Leave a comment

Source: Retail Apocalypse Continues: Dollar Tree Closing Up To 390 Stores

SHTFplan.com

Mac Slavo
March 7th, 2019

The retail apocalypse is now in full swing.  As consumers drift toward the ease of online shopping, brick and mortar stores begin to close up. Dollar Tree is the latest in a wave of companies announcing that they will be closing several hundred stores in the following months.

Dollar Tree reported a $2.3 billion loss, which has propelled the company to announce store closures and renovations.  Dollar Tree plans to close 390 Family Dollar stores this year while renovating 1,000 other locations. “We are confident we are taking the appropriate steps to reposition our Family Dollar brand for increasing profitability as business initiatives gain traction in the back half of fiscal 2019,” CEO Gary Philbin said in announcing the results according to CNBC.

On an unadjusted basis, the company had a loss of $2.31 billion, or a loss of $9.66 a share, compared with a profit of $1.04 billion, or $4.37 a share, during the same quarter last year, which included an extra week.

This news comes as the clothing retailer Charlotte Russe announced they will close all of their stores and immediately begin to liquidate their inventory.  “We are partnering with the buyer and remain in talks to sell the (intellectual property), are optimistic about the future of the brand, and remain in ongoing negotiations with a buyer who has expressed interest in a continued brick and mortar presence to continue to serve our loyal customers in the future,” the fashion retailer said in a statement to USA TODAY.

In a court hearing in Wilmington, Delaware, on Wednesday, Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein approved the sale of Charlotte Russe’s assets to SB360 Capital Partners LLC, a liquidation company. According to court documents, store liquidation sales “shall commence no later than March 7” and end “no later than April 30.”

Charlotte Russe Holdings had been teetering on the edge of bankruptcy for some time, having announced a deal to renegotiate certain debts more than a year ago.

The San Diego-based mall chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in early February and outlined plans to close 94 stores. The chain also put itself up for sale and said if it didn’t find a buyer it would liquidate. –USA Today

A furious wave of retail store closures is underway.  Many companies have too much debt and can no longer remain competitive with companies such as Amazon.  The bankruptcy marks the latest in a series of similar cases among mall retailers that have been unable to identify any realistic sustainable path amid declining foot traffic and intense digital competition.

Deadbeat Nation: 37 Million Credit Card Accounts In The U.S. Are “Seriously Delinquent” Right Now

Posted by Lou on March 7, 2019
Posted in: Debt slavery, Economic collapse, Economics, Retail apocalyse, student loans. Leave a comment

“Is the consumer debt bubble finally starting to burst?  If the latest numbers on delinquent credit card accounts are any indication, that appears to be precisely what is happening.  As I noted the other day, Americans currently have 480 million credit cards, and they are carrying 870 billion dollars worth of balances on those cards.  That is one giant pile of debt…”

Source: Deadbeat Nation: 37 Million Credit Card Accounts In The U.S. Are “Seriously Delinquent” Right Now – End Of The American Dream

endoftheamericandream.com

by
March 6, 2019

Is the consumer debt bubble finally starting to burst?  If the latest numbers on delinquent credit card accounts are any indication, that appears to be precisely what is happening.  As I noted the other day, Americans currently have 480 million credit cards, and they are carrying 870 billion dollars worth of balances on those cards.  That is one giant pile of debt, but there won’t be a problem as long as the vast majority of Americans regularly make their credit card payments.  Unfortunately, the number of credit card accounts that are delinquent has been steadily rising, and now we are being told that the number of “seriously delinquent” accounts has shot up to 37 million…

At the end of 2018, Americans struggled to make payments on the country’s $870 billion worth of credit card debt.

About 37 million credit card accounts were marked as seriously delinquent in the fourth quarter, meaning they were 90 or more days past due, an increase of two million from the same period a year earlier.

Remember, those accounts are not just behind.  We are talking about accounts that are at least 90 days past due.

It appears that the credit card industry has a burgeoning crisis on their hands.

Meanwhile, the number of Americans that are behind on their auto loan payments has reached an unprecedented level as well.

At this moment, more than 7 million Americans are delinquent on their auto loan payments.  That is a brand new all-time record, and it smashes the highest level that we witnessed during the last recession by about a million.

If things are this bad already, how high will these numbers go once we get really deep into the next recession?

The student loan debt bubble is starting to burst as well.  According to the most recent numbers, over 166 billion dollars in student loan debt is considered to be “seriously delinquent”.  That number has never been higher in all of U.S. history.

Right now, millions of Americans are deeply struggling with student loan debt, and an increasing number of them have decided to give up on making payments completely.

In an effort to combat this, the industry is encouraging a massive crackdown, and what we are currently witnessing in Florida may soon be coming to the rest of the nation.  The following comes from Zero Hedge…

Some 1,000 healthcare workers have lost their licenses to practice in Florida due to their inability to pay off their student debt, a new report claims. The “crackdown”, as described, could potentially put hundreds of people out of work, and comes as a result of student loan companies lobbying states to enact laws that punish those who default on their loans by taking away their professional licenses. However, so far Florida is the only state actually enforcing the law.

Adam Walser, an investigative reporter for ABC, found that the state Board of Health had suspended more than 900 healthcare licenses, including those belonging to registered nurses, nurses assistants and pharmacists, over the last two years. There are additionally 12 other states that still have the power to take away healthcare licenses for unpaid student loans. However, officials in those states said that they haven’t suspended any licenses over the last two years.

In the middle part of the country, farm debt is a major story right now.

Farm debt delinquencies have hit the highest level that we have seen in 9 years, and the global trade war has pushed many family farms to the brink of bankruptcy.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that things are going to get any better for them any time soon.

But I bet that you aren’t hearing much about any of this on the news, are you?

Instead, we are being inundated by mindless stories that really don’t matter.  For example, there is supposedly a huge “controversy” about whether Kylie Jenner is really a “self-made” billionaire or not.

Who cares?

Our country is literally coming apart all around us, and we are supposed to obsess about Kylie Jenner?

On Wednesday, we learned that Dollar Tree Inc. will be closing up to 390 Family Dollar stores in 2019.  When you add that to the other store closings that have already been announced this year, it brings the grand total to nearly 5,000.

Can the mainstream media please talk about our ongoing “retail apocalypse” a little bit more?  That is far more important to the daily lives of most Americans than Kylie Jenner.

The U.S. economy is in really rough shape at this moment, and even the president of the New York Fed is now admitting that our economy will slow down “considerably” this year…

The US economy should slow “considerably” in 2019 as the boost from last year’s economic stimulus fades, the president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank said Wednesday.

Amid economic uncertainty, the Federal Reserve could “wait” before raising interest rates again, John Williams said in remarks to the Economic Club of New York.

For many Americans, the economic horror show of 2008 and 2009 is nothing but a fading memory at this point.  But the truth is that what is coming is going to be even worse than that.  Our financial system is far more vulnerable that it was in 2008, and our debt levels are far, far higher.

This unsustainable bubble of debt-fueled prosperity that we have been enjoying in recent years has lasted for far longer than it should have, and it is just a matter of time before things dramatically deteriorate.

And if the recent debt delinquency numbers that I just shared with you are any indication, we are a lot closer to economic doomsday than most people would dare to imagine.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

America’s big box stores sucked up corporate welfare and killed Main Street — now they’re ducking property tax

Posted by Lou on November 19, 2018
Posted in: Business and money, Corporatocracy, Retail apocalyse. Leave a comment

America’s big box stores sucked up corporate welfare and killed Main Street — now they’re ducking property tax

Source: America’s big box stores sucked up corporate welfare and killed Main Street — now they’re ducking property tax / Boing Boing

boingboing.net

Cory Doctorow

Nov 17, 2018

The “dark store theory” holds that property taxes on thriving, super-profitable big box stores should not be based on how much the property sold for, plus the capital investment, minus depreciation — instead, these stores should be valued based on the selling price of nearby failed big-box stores that have been sold at knock-down prices.

Big box stores used their generous municipal subsidies to overbuild across American towns, creating a glut that resulted in widespread closures after the financial crisis. Because big box stores are so terribly built — shoddy construction, weird layouts, and not even enough freight docks to use as a warehouse — the shuttered stores sell for a tiny fraction of their book value.

But even though the big boxes are shuttering their stores like crazy, the remaining stores are still profitable — thanks to the overinvestment in big box stores during the rampup phase, all the local retail that might have competed with the remaining stores has collapsed. That leaves locals with no choice but to drive longer distances to the remaining stores to shop, meaning that the predatory mega-retailers now get to spend less to do the same business.

Entrepreneurial corporate lawyer/consultants like Detroit’s Michael Shapiro (who is credited with inventing “dark store theory”) and Minnesota’s Robert Hill have made a fortune for themselves and for big box stores by filing costly court challenges to the stores’ tax assessments, arguing that their property taxes should be based on the price of the abandoned, unsuccessful nearby stores, not on the standard formula of sale price plus improvements minus depreciation.

These lawyers seek reductions of fifty percent or more on property tax bills, and return year after year to drive those bills even lower. The small towns they hit — who often can’t afford to litigate against multinational, private-equity-backed retail giants — roll over.

Towns that have granted these tax concessions are going broke. Ste St Marie, MI has slashed city pensions; Escanaba, MI has cut its library hours; and so on. Meanwhile, town residents and small businesses are facing rising tax bills as their cities seek to close the gap left by the sweetheart treatment the big boxes are getting.

Wisconsinites in 24 towns voted to end “dark store theory” tax treatments in ballot initiatives in this month’s elections. But that’s only a few towns in one states, and meanwhile the epidemic rages on.

Still, it’s going to be tough: Don Millis, a prominent tax attorney who represents retailers and a lobbyist for the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the top advocacy group for big business in these parts, sits on the legislative committee assigned to review the issue.

Other states have proposed legal fixes, too, but in Indiana, the one state that managed to pass anti-dark store theory legislation in 2015, lobbying pressure led to its weakening the year after it was passed. The state tax board has continued to sympathize with retailers, who keep launching appeals.

If Wisconsin managed to change its laws, Hill told me, lawyers like him would just redouble their efforts. “That’s when we’ll grab the pitchforks and get the Constitution involved,” he said.

After the Retail Apocalypse, Prepare for the Property Tax Meltdown [Laura Bliss/Citylab]

(via Naked Capitalism)

(Image: Mike Mozart, CC-BY; Hgrobe, CC-BY-SA)

Coming soon: Mini robot grocery stores

Posted by Lou on November 15, 2018
Posted in: Labor, Retail apocalyse, Robotics. Leave a comment

Ours is arguably the laziest generation in the history of humankind. If it isn’t instant, doesn’t come in a box and isn’t available immediately, there probably isn’t much demand for it. This […]

Source: Coming soon: Mini robot grocery stores – NaturalNews.com

Natural News

by:

Wednesday, November 14, 2018Image: Coming soon: Mini robot grocery stores

 

Ours is arguably the laziest generation in the history of humankind. If it isn’t instant, doesn’t come in a box and isn’t available immediately, there probably isn’t much demand for it. This innate lack of desire to work for anything extends to the chore of purchasing groceries, too. The Internet has unashamedly fed our collective desire for everything from medication to groceries to be instantly available and delivered directly to our homes within hours. This, in turn, has created a grocery war in the United States, as big corporations like Whole Foods, Walmart and others clamor to grab their share of this lucrative and growing market.

At present, most grocery chains use good old-fashioned human beings to pack these online orders and get them ready for delivery. But right now, the economy is booming, labor costs are escalating and very few people are out there looking for work. As reported by Nasdaq.com, to get around this problem and to speed up the delivery process even further, several grocery groups, including Ahold Delhaize, have announced that they will be setting up small, automated warehouses known as robot supermarkets in the near future.

Robot supermarkets being rolled out across the country

Ahold Delhaize, though based in the Netherlands, operates several well-known grocery chains in the United States, including Food Lion, Giant Food and Hannaford. It has also owned the online grocery market leader, Chicago-based Peabod, since 2000. Two-thirds of all Ahold’s sales are generated in the U.S., and the company has big plans to nearly double its online sales from 2.8 billion euros last year to 5 billion euros by 2020. The robot supermarkets are a big part of this plan, as Nasdaq reported:

Netherlands-based Ahold Delhaize is teaming up with Takeoff, a start-up which builds small warehouses that stack groceries to the ceiling to save space and use robot arms to assemble shoppers’ orders for items such as beer, milk, bread and fruit.

The warehouses serve as condensed supermarkets that can supply several stores with click-and-collect orders. They cost about $3 million to build, which Takeoff says is less than the cost of a typical store revamp.

“With the robotized solution we can optimize those picking costs and be closer with micro fulfillment to our catchment areas,” noted Ahold Chief Executive Frans Muller. “We also reduce the cost of the last mile.”

Of course, the other grocery giants haven’t been resting on their robotic laurels, either. Walmart has announced that it will be testing Alert Innovation’s Alphabot automated grocery picking at one of its outlets in New Hampshire, while Kroger has allied itself to the U.K.’s online grocery expert, Ocado, to do the same.

Nasdaq reported:

Kroger said it will disclose the location for the first three U.S. sites out of a planned 20 high-tech Ocado warehouses in the next couple of weeks. They will take about two years to build and each cost Ocado about $39 million.

Since purchasing Whole Foods last year, Amazon has been offering same-day delivery in more than 60 cities, and the public is – literally – eating it up.

All of this automation may seem like a good idea, especially while the economy continues to boom, but where will it leave the average U.S. worker when the economy takes a downturn, as it inevitably will? Are we facing a future where robots perform all the functions currently performed by humans and unemployment becomes the norm? At least we’ll be able to sit on our couches and order our groceries, knowing that they’ll arrive within a couple of hours though, right?

Learn more about what the future holds at Robots.news.

Sources for this article include:

Nasdaq.com

NaturalNews.com

Retail Collapse: Here Are 2018’s 57 Biggest Store Closings

Posted by Lou on August 12, 2018
Posted in: Bankruptcy, Business and money, Retail apocalyse, USA. Leave a comment

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Closed storefronts are typical in American cities across shopping malls that once flourished in commercial zones of suburbia are now empty and abandoned.

As the retail apocalypse deepens, more than 3,800 stores are expected to close across the country this year. Department stores like Kmart, Macy’s, Sears, and JCPenney, and retailers including Best Buy, Payless, BCBG, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Bebe have decided to close dozens of locations.

A new report by real estate research firm Reis noticed that shopping malls had not been this empty since 2012, CNBC reported. The vacancy rate at regional and super-regional malls in the U.S. reached 8.6 percent in the second quarter of 2018, up from 8.4 percent in the prior quarter.

The increased vacancy rate is simultaneously occurring while online retailing giant Amazon continues to acquire a more significant share of the consumption pie.

According to Reis, the vacancy rate of malls could significantly jump over the next several years. Even Credit Suisse believes 25 percent of shopping malls will shut their doors by 2022.

As shoppers move online and mall traffic declines, NJ Advance Media has provided a complete and  startling list of the 57 biggest retail chains shuttering storefronts as of recent:

Abercrombie & Fitch

In March 2018, Abercrombie & Fitch announced it would close up to 60 more stores amid struggling sales and other closures in 2016 and 2017. The company has not announced if any of the New Jersey locations will close, and so far they’ve all stayed in business. Currently there are stores in Atlantic City, Bridgewater, Cherry Hill, Deptford, Eatontown, Edison, Elizabeth, Freehold, Paramus, Rockaway, Short Hills and Wayne.

Aeropostale

The retailer filed for bankruptcy in the spring of 2016, but in the fall of 2016 was acquired by a group of mall owners for $243 million. The sale was expected to save about 230 of Aeropostale’s 800 stores, according to Fortune. More than 100 stores were set to close after the bankruptcy filing, but the N.J. stores, so far, have never been on the chopping block.

Aerosoles

Edison-based women’s footwear chain Aerosoles has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and will close a “significant” number of stores, the company said in a September statement. While the company didn’t disclose how many or which of its 88 locations will be shuttered, it said it will maintain four flagship stores in New Jersey and New York, and continue to sell online.

American Apparel

The clothing brand filed for bankruptcy in 2016 and closed all stores, but its trademark was bought by Gildan Activewear. The company just recently opened its first brick-and-mortar store in L.A. after an online relaunch.

American Eagle

The teen apparel retailer announced in 2017 that 25 to 40 stores across the country would close, but so far its 20 New Jersey stores and outlets have remained open.

Ann Taylor, Dress Barn, Loft, Lane Bryant, Justice, Catherines, Maurices

In the summer of 2018, Ascena Retail Group — which owns the brands Ann Taylor, Dress Barn, Loft, Lane Bryant, Justice, Catherines andMaurices — announced plans to close 25 percent of retail stores (about 250 locations) by the end of 2019 and an “additional 400 or so stores … through landlord negotiations during the same period,” according to RetailDive.com.

The Banana Republic & The Gap

In September 2017, Gap Inc. announced it would close 200 Gap and Banana Republic stores over the subsequent three years. The company, however, said that it plans to open 270 new locations for Old Navy and Athleta. No N.J. closures have been announced.

Barnes & Noble

The book giant said in 2013 that it would close a third of its retail stores by 2023. These days, B&N has struggled to sell its Nook device and just abruptly fired its CEO. Several New York stores have shuttered; all of the New Jersey locations but one (North Brunswick) have survived so far.

BCBG Max Azria

The clothing retailer filed for bankruptcy in February 2017 and will close more than 100 stores across the country. About a dozen N.J. locations, including some in Lord & Taylor and Bloomingdale’s department stores, have remained open.

Bebe 

The women’s clothing retailer shut down all its U.S. stores in 2017 amid struggling sales, but continues to sell online at bebe.com.

Best Buy

In March 2018, Best Buy announced plans to shut down it’s small mobile phone kiosks, though no closures of the main stores have been announced.

Bon-Ton 

Bon-Ton, which operates 250 locations nationwide, announced in April that it will liquidate all U.S. stores after a bid for the company’s assets was accepted in bankruptcy proceedings. The department store has two N.J. locations, in Brick (80 Brick Plaza) and Phillipsburg (1200 Highway 22 East), both of which are still currently open.

Brookstone 

In August 2018, Brookstone — the mall staple known for its tech gadgets and massage chairs — announced plans to close its 101 mall stores, including seven locations in New Jersey, after filing for bankruptcy.

Charming Charlie

The beauty and accessories chain filed for bankruptcy in December 2017 and plans to close 100 stores. No word yet on the fate of the seven N.J. locations.

Chico’s

Chico’s, which also owns White House Black Market and Soma, said it would cut 240 jobs and close 120 stores, though which stores will close has not been announced. This year, the company announced “a collaboration with Amazon.com that will see a selection of Chico’s brand products go on offer on the e-commerce platform,” according to fashionnetwork.com.

The Children’s Place

In March 2017, the Secaucus-based chain announced plans to close 300 stores by the end of 2020, upping the number from a previous plan of closing 200 stores by 2017. No word yet on which, if any, of the 43 New Jersey locations are slated to shut their doors.

Claire’s

In March 2018, the teen jewelry and accessories brand announced it would close 92 stores as it files of bankruptcy, including N.J. stores in Voorhees, Livingston, Jersey City, Hackensack, Rockaway, Edison and Toms River.

Crocs

In 2017, Crocs said it will close 160 stores due to falling revenues. The shoe retailer has four locations in New Jersey — in Atlantic City, Blackwood, Elizabeth and Tinton Falls — but those stores have survived the closures so far.

CVS Pharmacy

CVS will close 70 stores to save $265 million, but the chain has not announced the location of the closures. In December 2017, CVS announced it had completed an acquisition of Target’s pharmacy and clinic businesses for $1.9 billion.

Finish Line

The shoe and athletic-apparel retailer will close 150 stores by 2020. In January 2016, the company blamed issues and losses on a new warehouse management system it had introduced, which, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal, caused order-processing issues, leading to millions in lost sales. Finish Line has not announced which, if any, of its 33 N.J. locations are closing.

Foot Locker

In March 2018, the shoe chain announced it would close 110 stores (after closing 147 in 2017), but it also plans to open 94 new locations this year, according to Business Insider.

GameStop

After slumping sales, GameStop in March 2017 announced plans to close between 150 and 225 locations. Which stores will be closed has not yet been revealed.

GNC

In April 2018, the vitamin and wellness chain announced plans to close 200 stores this year. No word yet on which stores will close.

Guess

In a March 2017 earnings call, Guess’ CEO announced 60 stores would close and that more could be shuttered in 2018. The retailer has not announced which, if any, of its New Jersey locations, will close.

Gymboree

Faced with a June 2017 interest payment on its more than $1 billion in debt, children’s clothing chain Gymboree filed for bankruptcy and announced plans to close up to 450 stores. The retailer has a dozen locations in New Jersey, but no specific store closures have been announced.

hhgregg

In March 2017, the appliance and electronics chain announced it will close more than 100 stores across the country. Its three N.J. locations, in Moorestown, Mays Landing and Deptford at Woodbury, have since closed.

JCPenney

JCPenney closed its locations at Rio Grande Plaza in Middle Township and at Garden State Plaza in Paramus as part of a larger plan to shutter 138 stores across the country. The department store has 13 other locations in New Jersey.

Jos A. Bank/Men’s Wearhouse

The parent company of the men’s suit chains, Tailored Brands, is on track to close 250 stores. The closures include 80 to 90 Jos. A. Bank stores and 58 outlet stores, according to Fortune, though which stores will close next hasn’t been announced.

Kmart

Kmart, which is part of Sears Holdings, will also close stores in New Jersey. The company will close 42 stores across the country, including seven here: Clementon, Clifton, East Brunswick, Pleasantville, Mantua, Manahawkin and Rio Grande.

The Limited

The women’s clothing chain closed all 250 of its locations, including New Jersey stores, in January. The chain is continuing to sell online.

Lord & Taylor

The department store will close “up to 10 stores” through 2019, including its Fifth Avenue location, “in order to better balance the brand’s brick and mortar presence with its online channels and increase profitability,” a spokeswoman told NJ Advance Media. Lord & Taylor has not announced which stores will close.

Macy’s

Macy’s announced it will close 68 stores across the country, cutting 10,000 jobs, after disappointing holiday sales. Three N.J. locations have closed, in Moorestown, Voorhees and Wayne.

Mattress Firm

The mattress retailer announced it would close 274 stores, but open about 75 new stores. No word on the fate of the more than 100 N.J. Mattress Firm locations.

Michael Kors

The namesake retailer of the “Project Runway” judge, Michael Kors closed 125 stores in 2017. Michael Kors has New Jersey locations in Edison, Freehold, Lawrenceville, Bridgewater, Elizabeth, Short Hills, Jersey City, Flemington, Wayne, Rockaway, Cherry Hill, Deptford, Blackwood, Atlantic City and Paramus that have so far remained open.

Nine West

The shoe retailer filed for bankruptcy in April 2018 and announced it would close all 70 of its retail stores. Nine West still sells shoes online.

Office Depot 

Office Depot has continued to shrink nationwide. In a 2016 report by the Consumerist, the office supply chain said it expects to close 300 more stores by 2019 to help cut annual costs by $250 million. The fate of the chain’s remaining N.J. stores is uncertain.

Payless

Payless announced that it would close stores in New Jersey as part of the company’s plan to shutter 400 locations across the country after filing for bankruptcy in 2017. The New Jersey locations that will close are: Loews Shopping Center, East Rutherford; Marlton Crossing, Marlton section of Evesham; Mid State Mall, East Brunswick; Phillipsburg Mall, Phillipsburg; Bloomfield Avenue, Bloomfield; Acme Plaza, Cape May Court House section of Middle Township and Marlboro Plaza, Marlboro.

Perfumania

In August 2017, the discount perfume retailer said it would close 64 of its 226 stores during bankruptcy filings. There are six Perfumania stores open in N.J.; a Woodbridge location has closed.

RadioShack 

RadioShack closed more than 1,000 stores across the country over the past two years, including all locations in New Jersey, but just announced a partnership with HobbyTown to open express store-within-a-store locations, according to CNN Money.

rue21

Four New Jersey locations of teen clothing retailer rue21 were among 400 across the country that closed as the company filed for bankruptcy. Stores in the Livingston Mall in Livingston, the Ocean County Mall in Toms River, Jersey Shore Premium Outlets in Tinton Falls and Hamilton Mall in Mays Landing have closed, while stores in the Cumberland Mall in Vineland, Cross Key Commons in Turnersville, Moorestown Mall and Audubon Crossings remain open.

Sam’s Club 

In January, Walmart announced it would close 63 Sam’s Club locations, and immediately closed N.J. locations in Budd Lake, Princeton andLinden. There are seven Sam’s Club stores left in the state.

Sears

In May 2018, Sears announced it will close another 62 stores across the country. In New Jersey, only the Vineland, Ocean and Burlington Sears locations have closed, but the location in Lawrenceville will close in September.

Staples

In 2017, the office supplies chain announced plans to close 70 stores. Staples has about 75 locations in New Jersey. The company has not said if any of the N.J. stores will close.

Teavana 

Starbucks has closed all 379 of its Teavana stores. There were 11 Teavana stores in New Jersey.

Toys R Us

Toys R Us kids all over mourned the loss of the toy retailer, which closed all stores in 2018.

True Religion

Jeans retailer True Religion has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and will close 27 of its 140 stores as the company restructures. Only one New Jersey store has closed so far — the location at Garden State Plaza in Paramus.

Vitamin World

In 2017, the vitamin chain said it would close 124 stores. The only N.J. location that has closed was the one in the Phillipsburg Mall. Moorestown Mall, Woodbridge Mall, Bridgewater Mall and Jersey Gardens Mall (Elizabeth) stores have remained open.

Walmart 

In early 2016, Walmart announced plans to close 154 stores, but so far has only closed one of their 70 N.J. stores; the location in Readington closed in Feb. 2018.

Wet Seal 

The teen clothing chain declared bankruptcy and began closing stores in 2015. In 2017, the company closed all of its remaining stores across the country, including N.J. locations in Freehold Raceway Mall and Monmouth Mall.

Bankrupt America: Bankruptcy Soars As The Country Grapples With An Unprecedented Debt Problem

Posted by Lou on August 10, 2018
Posted in: Bankruptcy, Debt slavery, Economics, Pension plans, Retail apocalyse. 2 Comments

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America, you officially have a debt problem, and I am not just talking about the national debt.  Consumer bankruptcies are surging, corporate debt has doubled since the last financial crisis, state and local government debt loads have never been higher, and the federal government has been adding more than a trillion dollars a year to the federal debt ever since Barack Obama entered the White House.  We have been on the greatest debt binge in human history, and it has enabled us to enjoy our ridiculously high standard of living for far longer than we deserved.  Many of us have been sounding the alarm about our debt problem for a very long time, but now even the mainstream news is freaking out about it.  I have a feeling that they just want something else to hammer President Trump over the head with, but they are actually speaking the truth when they say that we are facing an unprecedented debt crisis.

For example, the New York Times just published a piece that discussed the fact that the bankruptcy rate among retirees is about three times higher than it was in 1991…

For a rapidly growing share of older Americans, traditional ideas about life in retirement are being upended by a dismal reality: bankruptcy.

The signs of potential trouble — vanishing pensions, soaring medical expenses, inadequate savings — have been building for years. Now, new research sheds light on the scope of the problem: The rate of people 65 and older filing for bankruptcy is three times what it was in 1991, the study found, and the same group accounts for a far greater share of all filers.

Overall, Baby Boomers are doing a whole lot better financially than the generations coming after them, and so this is very troubling news.

And here is another very troubling fact from that same article…

Not only are more older people seeking relief through bankruptcy, but they also represent a widening slice of all filers: 12.2 percent of filers are now 65 or older, up from 2.1 percent in 1991.

The jump is so pronounced, the study says, that the aging of the baby boom generation cannot explain it.

Of course it isn’t just Baby Boomers that are drowning in debt.

Collectively, U.S. households are 13.15 trillion dollars in debt, which is the highest level in American history.

All over the nation, companies are also going bankrupt at a staggering pace.  This week we learned that the biggest mattress retailer in the entire country “Is considering a potential bankruptcy filing”…

Mattress Firm Inc, the largest U.S. mattress retailer, is considering a potential bankruptcy filing as it seeks ways to get out of costly store leases and shut some of its 3,000 locations that are losing money, people familiar with the matter said.

Mattress Firm’s deliberations offer the latest example of a U.S. brick-and-mortar retailer struggling financially amid competition from e-commerce firms such as Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O).

We have seen retailer after retailer go down, and it is being projected that this will be the worst year for retail store closings ever.

But it isn’t just retailers that are hurting.  Yesterday, I came across an article about a television manufacturer in South Carolina that just had to lay off “94 percent of their workforce”…

A TV manufacturer based in South Carolina have blamed Trump’s trade tariffs for laying off 94 percent of their workforce.

Element Electronics now has just eight employees in their company after letting 126 members of staff go.

They said the tariffs imposed on goods from China mean they can no longer buy essential components for their TVs.

During this next economic downturn, I believe that we are going to see the biggest wave of corporate bankruptcies that this country has ever seen.

State and local governments don’t go bankrupt, but they are drowning in debt as well.  State and local government debt has ballooned to the highest levels on record in recent years, and one of the big reasons for this is because we are facing a coming pension crisis that threatens to absolutely overwhelm us…

Many cities and states can no longer afford the unsustainable retirement promises made to millions of public workers over many years. By one estimate they are short $5 trillion, an amount that is roughly equal to the output of the world’s third-largest economy.

Certain pension funds face the prospect of insolvency unless governments increase taxes, divert funds or persuade workers to relinquish money they are owed. It is increasingly likely that retirees, as well as new workers, will be forced to take deeper benefit cuts.

Meanwhile, the federal government continues to engage in incredibly reckless financial behavior.  When Barack Obama was elected, we were 10 trillion dollars in debt, and now we are 21 trillion dollars in debt.

What that means is that we have been adding more than a trillion dollars to the national debt per year since 2008, and we continue to steal more than 100 million dollars every single hour of every single day from future generations of Americans.

And even though the Republicans have been in control in Washington, very few of our leaders seem to want to alter the trajectory that we are on.  But if something is not done, absolute disaster is a certainty.  At this point, it is being projected that our debt will reach 30 trillion dollars by 2028 if we stay on this current path.  It would be difficult to overstate the grave danger that we are facing, but nothing is being done to turn things around.  Here are some more projections from the Congressional Budget Office…

In 2022, the Highway Trust Fund will run out of full funding. In 2026, the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund follows. In 2032, the Social Security trust fund surpluses run dry, and all beneficiaries regardless of age or income level will face a 21 percent across-the-board benefit cut. Before 2030, we could have trillion-dollar annual interest payments. Interest rates have been low until now, but that is changing. As rates go up, we have to pay more on new debt and on all accumulated debt.

The amount we pay in interest on the debt is set to triple over the next ten years. But if interest rates rise just 1 point higher than expected, the government will owe an extra $1.9 trillion over 10 years.

On top of everything else, everyone else around the world has been on a massive debt binge as well.

Total global debt is well above 200 trillion dollars, and it has nearly quadrupled over the past 17 years.

Are you starting to understand why they call this a “debt bubble”?

Unfortunately, all debt bubbles must burst eventually, and the one that we are in right now is definitely on borrowed time.

Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

Peter Schiff: There’s A BIG Problem With The Economy, ‘Americans Are BROKE’

Posted by Lou on March 23, 2018
Posted in: Debt slavery, Economic collapse, Economics, Finance, Mainstream media, Money, Retail apocalyse, Unemployment. 1 Comment
Mac Slavo
March 22nd, 2018

Financial analyst Peter Schiff says there’s a big problem with the economy even though the mainstream media is reporting that rising interest rates are a good thing.  The problem, however, is that Americans are broke, and those interest rates could have a major impact on some of our wallets.

“The bad news is, we are going to live through another Great Depression and it’s going to be very different. This will be in many ways, much much worse, than what people had to endure during the Great Depression,” Schiff says. “This is going to be a dollar crisis.”

“When you are talking about the magnitude of the debt we have, that extra money [raising interest rates] is big. That’s going to be a big drain on the economy to the extent that we have to pay higher interest to international creditors…a lot of this phony GDP is coming from consumption, while the average American who is consuming is deeply in debt and they are going to impacted dramatically in the increase in the cost of servicing that debt…given how much debt we have, and how much debt is going to be marketed the massive increase in supply will argue for interest rates that are higher.” –Peter Schiff

 

Retail sales “unexpectedly” fell again in February even though most media outlets are touting a booming economy that can support raising the interest rates. It was the third straight monthly drop and the first time the US economy has seen three straight months of declining retail sales since 2012.

Sales fell 0.1% in February even though analysts had expected an uptick of 0.3%. According to CNBC, households cut back on purchases of motor vehicles and other big-ticket items, pointing to a slowdown in economic growth in the first quarter. But Peter Schiff won’t sugarcoat this one for us: Americans are broke.

And the worse things get, the less investors seem to notice.

What makes matters even worse is on Friday, we got the “too good to be true” and “just what the doctor ordered” Goldilocks jobs report that said 1 million people got jobs. Schiff said this “good news” report doesn’t make any sense, actually.

“So why didn’t any of those million people take their paychecks and spend them at a retailer? I mean, Trump is talking about all the great jobs, and all the raises that people have, and all the tax cuts. Why are retail sales down for three months in a row?” –Peter Schiff

Unfortunately, we also saw Americans running up record high levels of debt at the same time that the government is running massive deficits.

Last month, the New York Fed released the latest data on US household debt, revealing it has grown to a record $13 trillion. So yes, Americans have been spending, but they’ve been putting a lot of it on plastic. Credit card balances grew by $24 billion in the last quarter of 2017 alone. Could it be that Americans have maxed out the plastic?

At some point, a house of credit cards will collapse.

Schiff is hard on Donald Trump too, and rightfully so.  Lower taxes are always a good thing, the lower the better, in fact.  But Republicans refused to cut any government spending while instead, increasing it to the point of running massive deficits, making them worse than Democrats when it comes to being fiscally conservative.

The cold truth is that a back plan is needed, and most Americans don’t have that.  Many would be in some serious trouble during a financial downturn, and the country is most definitely headed that way.

Paul Craig Roberts: America Is Losing Its Economy

Posted by Lou on March 22, 2018
Posted in: Capitalism, Economic collapse, Economics, Mainstream media, Presstitutes, Retail apocalyse, Unemployment, Wealth inequality. Leave a comment

“50 percent of wage earners had net compensation less than $30,534 in 2016. The rich are a tiny percent of the population and cannot sustain a consumer economy.”

“Today you can’t be on the Forbes 400 unless you are a multi-billionaire. In such a system, ordinary people have no voice or influence.  One billionaire can purchase most of the government.  The billions of dollars that the US taxpayers give to Israel each and every year purchases the rest of the government. The military/security complex, the energy, mining, and timber industries, the pharmaceuticals, agri-business, Wall Street, the big banks and all the rest make American democracy a hoax.”

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Paul Craig Roberts
March 20, 2018

America Is Losing Its Economy

From John Williams proprietary report:

“Subject to Likely Downside Annual Benchmark Revisions this Coming Friday, February Industrial Production Jumped by 1.1% (0.9% Net of Revisions), Reflecting  improbable Strength in Manufacturing and Mining.
“Despite this perhaps premature report of industrial production gains, Given a Record 122 Months of Non-Expansion, Manufacturing Still Holds Shy of Its Pre-Recession Peak by 3.7% (-3.7%). [That peak was a decade ago!]
“Manufacturing Gains Likely Reflected Some Inventory Rebuilding Against Weakening Sales, As Disaster-Recovery Bloat Passes from the System.
“Continuing in Nonsensical Monthly Booms and Busts, February Housing Starts Activity Fell by 7.0% (-7.0%), Still Shy by 45.6% (-45.6%) of Recovering Its Pre-Recession Peak.
“First-Quarter 2018 GDP Outlook Continued to Weaken.
“Nonetheless, the FOMC Appears Set for a Rate Hike on Wednesday.”

“Underlying Economic Reality/Conditions: Discussed frequently here, what has happened with underlying economic reality is that broad activity had continued to stagnate and to falter anew, before the multiple natural disasters began to hit in late-August 2017, with Hurricane Harvey. The ensuing natural-disaster recovery boosted fourth-quarter economic activity, in areas ranging from retail sales and industrial production to construction spending and housing starts. That background largely was ignored by the hyper-bulls in the financial markets, who touted the rapidly expanding economy. That concept also received massive popular coverage in the headline media.

“Consumer Confidence and Sentiment are booming at multi-year highs, as discussed in the Consumer Liquidity Watch (page 37). The details reflect little more than the tone of the popular press, given how those measures of relative consumer optimism are surveyed. Such was established decades ago by the late Albert Sindlinger, an original consumer pollster, and Dr. David Fan of the University of Minnesota. Restricted consumer liquidity circumstances continue to impair and to constrain broad economic activity.”

John Williams of shadowstats.com has a long-term tradition of trying to hold US government data reporting agencies and financial presstitutes accountable, but as in every aspect of US reporting fantasies prevail over reality.

For example, according to the Federal Reserve and the presstitute financial press, US inflation is less than 2 percent.  Here is the Chapwood index, based on actually going out and purchasing items in the inflation basket:  http://www.chapwoodindex.com

As for the great consumer economy we hear about, here are the IRS statistics of the distribution of wage earners by level of net compensation:  https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2016

50 percent of wage earners had net compensation less than $30,534 in 2016. The rich are a tiny percent of the population and cannot sustain a consumer economy.

I remember reading many decades ago that in Texas a person was not considered rich unless they were worth at least $50 million dollars. Today you can’t be on the Forbes 400 unless you are a multi-billionaire. In such a system, ordinary people have no voice or influence.  One billionaire can purchase most of the government.  The billions of dollars that the US taxpayers give to Israel each and every year purchases the rest of the government. The military/security complex, the energy, mining, and timber industries, the pharmaceuticals, agri-business, Wall Street, the big banks and all the rest make American democracy a hoax.

As for the full employment claimed by US government reporting agencies, how does full employment coexist with this reported fact from the Dallas Morning News: https://www.dallasnews.com/business/toyota/2018/01/17/100000-applied-1000-toyota-jobs-plano-made-people-stand

Toyota Motor Company advertised the availability of 1,000 new jobs associated with moving its North American headquarters from southern California to Texas and received 100,000 applications. Where did these applications come from when the US has “full employment?”

Clearly, the US does not have full employment. The US has an extremely low rate of labor force participation, because there are no jobs to be had, and discouraged workers who cannot find jobs are not measured in the unemployment rate. Not measuring the unemployed is the basis of the low reported unemployment rate. The official US unemployment rate is just a hoax like Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction,” Assad’s “use of chemical weapons,” Russia’s “invasion of Ukraine,” “Iranian nukes,” and “Russiagate.” The list of hoaxes created by the US government and its presstitute media are endless. And the dumbshit Americans sit in front of CNN, MSNBC, NPR and the rest and absorb the indoctrination to their own peril and insignificance.

Americans live in a fantasy world about their Great Country, their Great Economy, their Great Military System that ensures them Hegemony Over the World even though after 17 years the World’s Greatest Military has been unable to defeat a few thousand lightly armed Taliban in Afghanistan, their Great Everything. But in fact, insouciant Americans live in The Matrix. They have no idea of their real situation.

If Trump names John Bolton National Security Adviser, plan to die.

History In The Making: Amazon’s First Fully-Automated Grocery Store Opens To The Public

Posted by Lou on January 22, 2018
Posted in: Artificial intelligence, Internet, Retail apocalyse, Robotics, Technology. 3 Comments

With permission from

After nearly a year of testing – plus a few highly publicized practice runs involving reporters from a handful of influential tech media outlets like the New York Times – Amazon will open its small-format Seattle test store, dubbed “Amazon Go” on Monday.

The store will feature cashier-free checkouts, allowing customers who install the “Amazon Go” app to simply pick up an item and walk out with it. The launch was supposed to happen earlier, but was delayed due to bugs, we pointed out late last year.

Details of the shopping experience provided to the mainstream media sound like something wholly different than what consumers are used to…

The Seattle store, known as Amazon Go, relies on cameras and sensors to track what shoppers remove from the shelves, and what they put back. Cash registers and checkout lines become superfluous – customers are billed after leaving the store using credit cards on file.

For grocers, the store’s opening heralds another potential disruption at the hands of the world’s largest online retailer, which bought high-end supermarket chain Whole Foods Market last year for $13.7 billion. Long lines can deter shoppers, so a company that figures out how to eradicate wait times will have an advantage.

Amazon did not discuss if or when it will add more Go locations, and reiterated it has no plans to add the technology to the larger and more complex Whole Foods stores.

The opening date, Jan. 22, could very well be remembered as a milestone in the history of consumerism, as Reuters pointed out. While many assumed Amazon would quickly adapt the Amazon Go format for use at its Whole Foods stores, the company says it presently has no plans to integrate the technology with WFM.

Go

Bloomberg reported back in November that that the Amazon Go team had shifted from hiring the engineers and research scientists needed to perfect the platform to hiring construction managers and marketers necessary to build and promote the stores to consumers – a decision that likely signaled Amazon’s intentions to take the concept nation-wide.

But apparently Jeff Bezos has decided that crushing rival grocery stores is a conquest that could wait until 2019, or perhaps beyond. According to the NYT, there were 3.5 million grocery store jobs in the US, as of 2016.

Amazon

However, according to NYT, there’s been speculation that Amazon could sell the system to other retailers, much as it sells its cloud computing services to other companies.

But rather than eliminating jobs, Amazon says its technology simply changes the role of employees, who will be assigned to different tasks. Though the impact that Amazon’s other businesses have had on retail and other industries would suggest that this notion is a fiction invented by the company’s communications department.

The Amazon Go prototype opened to Amazon employees on Dec. 5, 2016. At the time, Amazon said it expected members of the public could begin using the store in early 2017.

But, as Reuters pointed out, there have been some unexpected obstacles involving the store’s complex system of sensors and cameras. People familiar with Amazon’s operations said these included correctly identifying shoppers with similar body types.

Amazon

Children who were brought into the store during the course of testing created mayhem by picking up items and putting them back in the wrong places. Hopefully, Amazon has since optimized its technology to account for this.

One Amazon executive told Reuters that four years of planning went into Amazon Go before the prototype store was even built.

Gianna Puerini, vice president of Amazon Go, said in an interview that the store worked very well throughout the test phase, thanks to four years of prior legwork.

“This technology didn’t exist,” Puerini said, walking through the Seattle store. “It was really advancing the state of the art of computer vision and machine learning.”

“If you look at these products, you can see they’re super similar,” she said of two near-identical Starbucks drinks next to each other on a shelf. One had light cream and the other had regular, and Amazon’s technology learned to tell them apart.

The 1800-square-foot (167-square-meter) store is located in an Amazon office building in Seattle. In a brief description of the customer experience, Reuters explained that, to start shopping, customers must scan an Amazon Go smartphone app and pass through a gated turnstile.

In an interview with the Times, Amazon representatives were tight-lipped about how the store’s complex system of cameras and sensors would work, other than to say it involves sophisticated computer vision and machine learning software. The sensors are mostly out of sight, though customers can, in some areas, see clusters of small cameras hanging from the ceiling.

Ready-to-eat lunch items greet shoppers when they enter. Deeper into the store, shoppers can find a small selection of grocery items, including meats and meal kits. An Amazon employee checks IDs in the store’s wine and beer section.

Sleek black cameras monitoring from above and weight sensors in the shelves help Amazon determine exactly what people take.

If someone passes back through the gates with an item, his or her associated account is charged. If a shopper puts an item back on the shelf, Amazon removes it from his or her virtual cart.

Clearly struggling to list off aspects of the shopping experience that would be familiar to customers, Reuters reported that products sold at Amazon Go locations contain price stickers similar to traditional grocery stores. But, judging by the Times’s description, most of the experience will feel completely alien: The paper described passing through the store’s turnstiles as similar to entering the subway.

Amazon

The experience is more closely akin to shoplifting, the paper noted. But, assuming you have an Amazon, account, actually shoplifting from the store is exceedingly difficult, according to the Times – a testament to the sophistication of its system of sensors.

Also there are no shopping carts or baskets inside Amazon Go. Instead, customers put items directly into the shopping bag they’ll walk out with. Every time customers grab an item off a shelf, Amazon says the product is automatically put into the shopping cart of their online account. If customers put the item back on the shelf, Amazon removes it from their virtual basket.

Once the store opens for business today, expect a rash of customer reviews and – considering mankind’s aptitude for rooting out flaws – complaints. However, one thing is clear: Regardless of the initial reaction, this is a glimpse into the future of the retail industry – a future that will inevitably require the employment of fewer humans.

Why America’s Retail Apocalypse Could Accelerate Even More In 2018

Posted by Lou on November 14, 2017
Posted in: Debt slavery, Economic collapse, Economics, Retail apocalyse. Leave a comment

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With permission from

theeconomiccollapseblog.com

By Michael Snyder
on November 13th, 2017
 

Is the retail apocalypse in the United States about to go to a whole new level?  That is a frightening thing to consider, because the truth is that things are already quite bad.  We have already shattered the all-time record for store closings in a single year and we still have the rest of November and December to go.  Unfortunately, it truly does appear that things will get even worse in 2018, because a tremendous amount of high-yield retail debt is coming due next year.  In fact, Bloomberg is reporting that the amount of high-yield retail debt that will mature next year is approximately 19 times larger than the amount that matured this year…

Just $100 million of high-yield retail borrowings were set to mature this year, but that will increase to $1.9 billion in 2018, according to Fitch Ratings Inc. And from 2019 to 2025, it will balloon to an annual average of almost $5 billion. The amount of retail debt considered risky is also rising. Over the past year, high-yield bonds outstanding gained 20 percent, to $35 billion, and the industry’s leveraged loans are up 15 percent, to $152 billion, according to Bloomberg data.

Even worse, this will hit as a record $1 trillion in high-yield debt for all industries comes due over the next five years, according to Moody’s.

Can you say “debt bomb”?

For those of you that are not familiar with these concepts, high-yield debt is considered to be the riskiest form of debt.  Retailers all over the nation went on a tremendous debt binge for years, and many of those loans never should have been made.  Now that debt is going to start to come due, and many of these retailers simply will not be able to pay.

So how does that concern the rest of us?

Well, just like with the subprime mortgage meltdown, the “spillover” could potentially be enormous.  Here is more from Bloomberg…

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.

I have written extensively about Sears and other troubled retailers that definitely appear to be headed for zero.  But one major retailer that is flying below the radar a little bit that you should keep an eye on is Target.  For over a year, conservatives have been boycotting the retailer, and this boycott is really starting to take a toll…

Target has been desperately grasping at ideas to recover lost business, including remodeling existing stores and opening smaller stores, lowering prices, hiring more holiday staff and introducing a new home line from Chip and Joanna Gaines. But Target stock remains relatively stagnant, opening at 61.50 today—certainly nowhere near the mid-80s of April 2016, when the AFA boycott began.

In the past, retailers could always count on the middle class to bail them out, but the middle class is steadily shrinking these days.  In fact, at this point one out of every five U.S. households has a net worth of zero or less.

And we must also keep in mind that we do not actually deserve the debt-fueled standard of living that we are currently enjoying.  We are consuming far more wealth than we are producing, and the only way we are able to do that is by going into unprecedented amounts of debt.  The following comes from Egon von Greyerz…

Total US debt in 1913 was $39 billion. Today it is $70 trillion, up 1,800X. But that only tells part of the story. There were virtually no unfunded liabilities in 1913. Today they are $130 trillion. So adding the $70 trillion debt to the unfunded liabilities gives a total liability of $200 trillion.

In 1913 US debt to GDP was 150%. Today, including unfunded liabilities, the figure becomes almost 1,000%. This is the burden that ordinary Americans are responsible for, a burden that will break the US people and the US economy as well as the dollar.

The only possible way that the game can go on is to continue to grow our debt much faster than the overall economy is growing.

Of course that is completely unsustainable, and when this debt bubble finally bursts everything is going to collapse.

We don’t know exactly when the next great financial crisis is coming, but we do know that conditions are absolutely perfect for one to erupt.  According to John Hussman, it wouldn’t be a surprise at all to see stock prices fall more than 60 percent from current levels…

At the root of Hussman’s pessimistic market view are stock valuations that look historically stretched by a handful of measures. According to his preferred valuation metric — the ratio of non-financial market cap to corporate gross value-added (Market Cap/GVA) — stocks are more expensive than they were in 1929 and 2000, periods that immediately preceded major market selloffs.

“US equity market valuations at the most offensive levels in history,” he wrote in his November monthly note. “We expect that more extreme valuations will only be met by more severe losses.”

Those losses won’t just include the 63% plunge referenced above — it’ll also be accompanied by a longer 10 to 12 year period over which the S&P 500 will fall, says Hussman.

A financial system that is based on a pyramid of debt will never be sustainable.  As I discuss in my new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters”, the design of our current debt-based system is fundamentally flawed, and it needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.

The borrower is the servant of the lender, and our current system is designed to create as much debt as possible.  When it inevitably fails, we need to be ready to offer an alternative, because patching together our current system and trying to re-inflate the bubble is not a real solution.

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

‘Psychologically scarred’ millennials are killing countless industries from napkins to Applebee’s — here are the businesses they like the least

Posted by Lou on September 17, 2017
Posted in: Business and money, Money, Retail apocalyse, The Future. Leave a comment

And good riddance to most of these. Golf? Diamonds? Hooters? Good riddance for sure.

Source: Millennials are killing list – Business Insider

Kate Taylor

Aug. 20, 2017

buffalo wild wings
Buffalo Wild Wings on Facebook
 

Millennials’ preferences are killing dozens of industries.

There are many complex reasons millennials’ preferences differ from prior generations’, including less financial stability and memories of growing up during the recession.

“I think we have got a very significant psychological scar from this great recession,” Morgan Stanley analyst Kimberly Greenberger told Business Insider.

Casual dining chains like Buffalo Wild Wings and Applebee’s

Casual dining chains like Buffalo Wild Wings and Applebee's

Wikimedia Commons

Brands such as Buffalo Wild Wings, Ruby Tuesday, and Applebee’s have faced sales slumps and dozens of restaurant closings as casual-dining chains have struggled to attract customers and increase sales.

In August, Applebee’s announced it would close up to 135 restaurants, in part because it focused too much on winning over millennials and forgot its “Middle America roots.” 

“Millennial consumers are more attracted than their elders to cooking at home, ordering delivery from restaurants, and eating quickly, in fast-casual or quick-serve restaurants,” Buffalo Wild Wings CEO Sally Smith wrote in a letter to shareholders earlier this year.

Beer

Beer

The Great American Beer Festival

In late July, Goldman Sachs downgraded both Boston Beer Company and Constellation Brands based on data suggesting that younger consumers prefer wine and spirits to beer, as well as the fact that they’re drinking less alcohol than older generations more generally.

Beer penetration fell 1% from 2016 to 2017 in the US market, while both wine and spirits were unmoved, according to Nielsen ratings. 

While some argue that calling a 1% drop in penetration a beer-industry homicide case is an overreaction, small shifts have a huge financial impact on beer industry giants. Beer already lost 10% of market share to wine and hard liquor from 2006 to 2016.

Napkins

Napkins

Daniel Zuchnik / Stringer / Getty Images

Younger consumers are opting for paper towels over napkins, according a Washington Post article from 2016.

The Post points to a survey conducted by Mintel, which highlights that only 56% of shoppers said they bought napkins in the past six months. At the same time, 86% surveyed said they had purchased paper towels.

Paper towels are more functional than napkins and can be used for more purposes. And the Post noted that millennials are more likely to eat meals out of the home, contributing to the decline. 

“Breastaurant” chains like Hooters

"Breastaurant" chains like Hooters

Business Insider Video

People ages 18 to 24 are 19% less likely to search for breasts on the pornographic website Pornhub compared with all other age groups, according to an analysis conducted by the website.

For “breastaurants” like Hooters and Twin Peaks, a loss of interest in breasts is bad for business. The number of Hooters locations in the US has dropped by more than 7% from 2012 to 2016, and sales have stagnated, according to industry reports.

Hooters has struggled to win over millennials for some time now. In 2012, the chain attempted to revamp its image with updated decor and new menu items to attract more millennial and female customers.

Cereal

Cereal

Unsplash / Jennifer Pallian

Almost 40% of millennials surveyed by Mintel said cereal was an inconvenient breakfast choice because they had to clean up after eating it, The New York Times reported in 2016.

Instead, younger consumers are turning to convenient options with minimal cleanup that can be eaten on the go, from yogurt to fast-food breakfast sandwiches.

Cereal sales dropped 5% from 2009 to 2014, even though more Americans are eating breakfast than ever before.

Companies such as Kellogg and General Mills have reported that sales have stopped falling in 2017, so cereal may not be dead just yet. 

Golf

Golf

KOMUnews/flickr

“From the golf industry statistics, we know that rounds are down,” Matt Powell of the industry-research firm NPD said in a video in 2016. “We know that millennials are not picking up the game, and boomers are aging out. The game is in decline.” 

While millennials have created new fitness crazes, like SoulCycle and barre classes, golf has failed to capture their interest in the same manner. 

Motorcycles

Motorcycles

Harley Davidson Facebook Page

“Our data suggests the younger Gen Y population is adopting motorcycling at a far lower rate than prior generations,” AB analyst David Beckel said in a July note downgrading its rating of Harley-Davidson shares from “outperform” to “market perform.”

Motorcycle sales at Harley-Davidson, which represents about half of the US big-bike market, were down 1.6% overall in 2016 versus the year before. US sales fell 3.9%.

The company shipped 262,221 motorcycles overall, which fell short of expectations of 264,000 to 269,000 units.

Continue:

Millennials are killing list – Business Insider

Kate Taylor

#BoycottSearsCanada: Retailer faces ‘PR nightmare’ over treatment of laid-off workers

Posted by Lou on July 23, 2017
Posted in: Bankruptcy, Boycott, Canada, Capitalism, Corporatocracy, Labor, Retail apocalyse, Social media, Unemployment. Leave a comment

Source: #BoycottSearsCanada: Retailer faces ‘PR nightmare’ over treatment of laid-off workers – Business – CBC News

CBC News

By Sophia Harris

Jul 23, 2017

Chain tries to attract customers during restructuring, but encounters online criticism Sears Canada is facing an online backlash about not paying laid-off workers severance — at the same time it's trying to lure customers.

Sears Canada is facing an online backlash about not paying laid-off workers severance — at the same time it’s trying to lure customers. (Brian Higgins/CBC)

“Some of these people, their whole career has been with Sears.”

Sears Canada is striving to reinvent itself and entice customers. But every time it posts an ad promoting products on its Facebook site, the retailer is bombarded with angry comments.

“No one cares!” wrote one person, commenting on a dishware ad. “As far as I’m concerned the whole company should go belly-up.”

“Empty plates are what Sears ex-employees will be staring at after they have been rooked out of their severance and retirement payments,” posted another person.

Sears Canada ad Facebook dishware

An ad for dishware on Sears Canada’s Facebook site sparked some angry comments. (Sears Canada/Facebook)

The spiteful comments follow Sears’ announcement last month that as part of a court-supervised restructuring process, it’s closing 59 of its 255 stores and laying off 2,900 workers — none of whom is getting severance.

Sears has also requested court permission to stop topping up the underfunded reitree pension plan. The retailer recently agreed to postpone that matter until Sept. 30. 

The repercussions of the restructuring — especially the no-severance deal — have infuriated numerous Canadians, many of whom want Sears to know they won’t be shopping at its department stores.

“I will not spend one red cent in your store … no severance, no sale,” posted one person.

“I will not be checking out anything at Sears. Do your duty to your employees, you jerks,” wrote someone else.

There are also calls for a boycott, with some adding to their comments: #BoycottSearsCanada. The hashtag has also shown up on Twitter.

Commenters have also griped about the news Sears will pay up to $7.6 million in court-approved retention bonuses to 43 executives and senior managers during the restructuring process.

“PLEASE SUPPORT THE C.E.O. OF SEARS CANADA HE NEEDS YOUR HELP!” someone posted as a joke on Sears’ Facebook site. 

‘PR nightmare’

“It’s just a PR nightmare,” says retail analyst, Bruce Winder about the social media attacks. “That is not going to serve them well as they try to build back sales momentum.”

Winder believes Sears’ restructuring has sparked a backlash because people don’t like to see bad things happen to people they view as vulnerable — such as retail workers.

“Consumers, when they see that a company, in their opinion, doesn’t treat those vulnerable people properly, they lash out,” says Winder, with the Retail Advisors Network in Toronto.

Sears Canada told CBC News that deep financial troubles left it with no choice but to seek court protection from its creditors while it restructures.

As part of the court proceedings, the company said it’s not able to make payments to a number of stakeholders, including laid-off workers owed severance.

It also said the employee retention bonuses are necessary to keep senior staff who will help Sears achieve the best possible outcome for everyone: a revamped retailer that stays in business.

Sears did not offer any specific comment on the reams of angry posts on its Facebook site.

Remember Target Canada

Many other cash-strapped companies have followed paths similar to Sears. For example, in 2015 Target Canada filed for creditors’ court protection and announced it was closing all 133 stores and laying off 17,600 employees.

Those workers, too, didn’t receive severance, although some continued to get paid while not working if their store closed early.

Key Target Canada staff also received retention bonuses to stay on the job during the wind-down process.

But the situation didn’t appear to spark the same amount of vitriol as with Sears. One big difference is that unlike Target, which left Canada, Sears continues to run ads to drum up more sales and attract customers — at a time when the company has run out of money to pay severance.

Sears Canada ad dress Facebook

An ad for a dress on the Sears Canada Facebook site prompted someone to comment: ‘How can you afford to advertise when you can’t pay severance?’ (Sears Canada/Facebook)

“Hmmm how can you afford to advertise when you can’t pay severance?” posted one person following a Sears Facebook ad for a dress.

“The advertising budget doesn’t end, kind of like the Executive’s pay,” stated another comment on an ad for a suitcase.

“The fact that they’re still advertising and still staying open, is really seen as a bad idea for many people,” says June Cotte, a marketing professor at the Ivey Business School at Western University. She adds that the retailer must keep promoting its products if it wants to survive.

Tainted memories?

Cotte says another problem Sears faces is that, unlike Target, many Canadians grew up with the iconic department store chain and feel a connection to the retailer.

“That relationship or that memory seems now tainted,” she says. 

Tracy Brown in Stratford, Ont., informed Sears on Facebook she’ll no longer shop at the retailer. A customer since childhood, Brown told CBC News she feels sorry for the laid-off workers.

Carrie Brasier in Winnipeg also told Sears on Facebook she’s boycotting its stores because of what’s happening to laid-off staff.“As a blue collar worker, it just kind of tugs at you, it makes you mad,” says the maintenance planner.

Brasier also grew up with Sears but feels just as much anger towards Target Canada for not paying its workers severance.

But she says the difference is that Target is simply no longer a target in Canada.

“I can’t boycott them because they went bankrupt and ran back to the U.S.”

Comprehensive list of casualties that have become victim to the retail apocalypse

Posted by Lou on July 22, 2017
Posted in: Labor, Retail apocalyse. Leave a comment

Source: Comprehensive list of casualties that have become victim to the retail apocalypse

http://www.newstarget.com

by

Friday, July 21, 2017

 
The number of retail stores who have filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy within the first half of this year is the highest the country has ever seen since the Great Recession. In only the first three months of 2017, nine retailers declared themselves bankrupt. That is equal to the total for all of 2016. Financial analysts worry that this year may be at par with the national economic turmoil in 2009, when 18 retailers went under. Economists have stated that the reasons behind this depression lies in more consumers preferring to shop online along with a shift in shopping sensibilities, wherein more people are opting to travel and dine out rather than spend on clothes. Another factor is leveraged buyouts. This is where a private equity firm purchases a struggling retail store, inevitably saddling the latter with more debt in the process. A report on CNBC.com showed that the number of bankruptcy filings by such partnerships had increased by 31 percent over the prior five years.

As we enter the second half of the year, it would do well to recognize all the stores that have filed for bankruptcy.

  1. The Limited – The retail store filed for bankruptcy last January 17 after it closed all its 250 remaining stores. The group said that it would be transferring its assets online, although many industry analysts say that the store has reached the end of its era. The Limited was bought by Sycamore Partners for $26.8 million in February. This new portfolio now includes the Belk department stores, Hot Topic, Nine West, and Talbots.
  2. Wet Seal – An extremely popular brand during the early 2000s, the retail store saw a dramatic loss of sales in only a few short years. Wet Seal filed for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February and was officially bought by Gordon Brothers for $3 million.
  3. Eastern Outfitters – This used to be the go-to store for outdoor apparel and gear. Nonetheless, the company restructured itself last year to focus on its Mountain Sport arm. The move proved to be unsuccessful as fierce competition drove Eastern Outfitters to file for bankruptcy less than a year after it transferred ownership to Versa Capital Management. It has now been bought by Sports Direct for $101 million.
  4. BCBG Max Azria – The once-popular clothes brand has been floundering for the last few years. Most economists assumed the death of the brand in 2013 when it was revealed that their debt load had reached a massive $685 million. Going against the odds, BCBG somehow managed to stay afloat — although barely — for the next four years. Problems persisted within the brand, eventually causing BCBG to file for bankruptcy last March. Supposedly, Marquee Brands and Global Brands Group Holding Ltd. has acquired the intellectual property and assets of BCBG for an undisclosed amount. (Related: Major retail chains shutting down thousands of stores; are you prepared and self-reliant?)
  5. Vanity – The mall-based specialty apparel retailer saw a dramatic loss of sales as consumers changed their shopping habits. Vanity had reached its height in 2013, when it had around 170 stores in 26 states. It filed for bankruptcy last March.
  6. Hhgregg – Here’s one victim of Amazon’s massive e-commerce takeover. The electronics and appliance retailer was a well-known multi-regional chain in the late 20th century. However, entering 2016, Hhgregg announced that its fleet had been reduced by 40 percent which resulted to around 1,500 job cuts. The retailer threw in the towel last March and has closed its remaining 220 stores while liquidating all its assets.
  7. RadioShack –  This was once the haven for all nerds. The almost 100-year-old company is planning on closing 200 stores and is evaluating its options for the remaining 1,300. Dene Rogers, the group’s CEO, blames the bankruptcy on poor mobility sales.
  8. Gordmans stores – Gordmans was a traditionalist — only entering the online environment in 2015. The move was too-little-too-late for the veritable retailer, as it filed for bankruptcy last March. In only a year, sales for the company fell by 75 percent. This led to a slew of job cuts and the imminent bankruptcy filing.
  9. Gander Mountain – The outdoor and sporting goods brand once boasted 162 locations in 27 states, with plans for 60 new stores. However, Gander Mountain found itself locked in intense competition with other outdoor retailers. Unable to find its footing, Gander sold itself to Illinois-based Camping World Holdings for $37 million last March. After the sale was approved, Gander announced that it would keep open 70 of its remaining 126 stores.
  10. Payless – The discount shoe retailer was once seen to be unstoppable, with branches popping up left and right in multiple states. Nevertheless, CEO of Payless, W. Paul Jones made a “difficult, but necessary, decision” last April when it filed for bankruptcy. Jones implicated the challenging retail environment as the main reason for the bankruptcy.
  11. Rue21 – Last April, the teen apparel brand began shutting down 400 of its stores nationwide. Only a month later, the group decided to declare itself bankrupt. This left Rue21 with around 800 stores and its e-commerce business. Its Chapter 11 bankruptcy contained provisions for restructuring plans to keep the company afloat.
  12. Gymboree – After missing an interest payment for its outstanding debt worth millions of dollars, children’s retailer Gymboree filed for bankruptcy last June. Analysts say that this was an inevitable outcome of its leveraged buyout from Bain Capital last 2010. As mall traffic continued to decline, the retail brand continued to see its sales drop. Gymboree has announced plans to close as many as 450 of its stores but hopes to emerge from this bankruptcy by the end of this year.
  13. Papaya Clothing – Papaya hopes to remain in operation, despite its bankruptcy filing. The retail store is the victim of its own success. When it first started in 1999, it rapidly expanded, opening around 50 stores in six years. It ran into a speed bump when it got involved in e-commerce. Faster off-price fashion retailers bullied their way into the market, effectively driving Papaya into debt.
  14. True Religion Apparel Inc. – Denim was once considered the “in” look. These days, not so much. As the demand for yoga pants and similar trends increased, the designer denim retailer struggled to maintain its relevance. By 2016, the company was $500 million in debt. Efforts to restructure and rejuvenate its business has proven to be unsuccessful. The company filed for bankruptcy last July 5 and signed a restructuring agreement with lenders for a debt worth $350 million.

This is quite a long list, and one made even more worrisome by the fact that 2017 has not even ended. Financial analysts refuse to make any predictions, but have noted that this disturbing trend of the “retail apocalypse” will continue. 

Sources include:

RetailDive.com

CNBC.com

USCourts.gov

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