Retail sales fell 1.1% last month.
It might not sound like a lot, but it’s the worst showing in 7 months...and right at what’s supposed to be the busiest shopping time of the year.
So much for a recovery. I think we’re in for a massive depression and, if inflation keeps going up, food riots.
Your idiots in local government, local media, and the local blogs? None of them seem to see this coming.
Do you really think we’re in the midst of a recovery? Because most of the major corporations don’t. Would Coke be laying off 12% of their US workforce if they thought good times were right around the corner?
Of course not. So what do they know that your local media and politicians do not?
I think it’s obvious - Coke is in the private sector and they can’t keep glossing over the numbers with taxpayer money like those in local government do.
They see the obvious - people are not spending money, even on simple and cheap things like a can of Coke. If they have money, they're saving it for the turbulent months ahead. But most simply have nothing anymore, and nothing left to lose.
At Coke, they can’t play with other people’s money...they actually have to go out and make it from nothing (and not the way the Fed does it).
Local politicians then take a portion of that money from Coke workers to pay their salaries and to usher in their pet projects.
Over the course of the next year, those politicians will have a lot less money to play around with because there are fewer Coke workers for them to tax so they can pay themselves and for their agenda.
New York is a fine example of this. In that city, tax revenues are already down 42% from last year, which amounts to a $1.2 billion loss.
What is the mayor there doing? He’s increasing property taxes by 4.6% to try and offset this, as if that’ll do anything more than drive more people out of the city. More than 300,000 have already left.
No cuts in services are coming for New York. I wonder how long that city can hang on, especially when they don’t get a federal bailout.
Seems state and local aid has been taken off the table with the upcoming federal stimulus package.
I think that’s good. It’s a shame we’re even thinking about letting these places get away with years of disastrous spending.
I wish we’d scrap the whole idea of a stimulus and just let the chips fall where they may. If people are out of money and losing their home, then the answer is simple - open the economy and let them go back to work.
But we won’t do that because we’re radically changing society to better suit the ultra-rich.
Oh, was I supposed to say a virus is to blame? Sorry!
Here in Missoula it’s terrible for common workers, and the managerial class alike.
What are all the former restaurant and bar and small store managers supposed to do now or in six months when their steady and often-salaried positions are gone for good?
Many will find whatever they can to keep them in the lifestyle they’ve become accustomed to.
I know this from my visit to Ace Hardware today.
I was looking for a kitchen sink faucet piece because mine was leaking. Found it, headed to the checkouts, where three lanes were open. All of them were staffed by people older than my parents, so at least 70 if not older.
Aren’t these the people that are supposed to be deathly afraid of covid? Well, not if you have no savings and can’t pay the rent/mortgage if you don’t get that next paycheck. They have no savings.
The lane I selected had a very old man with very white hair being helped by a younger woman in her 30s. I guess he was in training, or perhaps just having trouble. He did seem flustered with the credit card he was trying to enter for the customer ahead of me.
Next to him was a woman working. She had short, gray spiky hair and an older gentleman with white hair was training her. I suppose she was in her 60s and he was in his 70s, maybe even 80s. He had a hearing-aid in one ear.
When they got done with their customer they had a moment to chit-chat. I overheard him ask her how long she’d been living here. She replied a month. I couldn’t hear the next part, but I think she said she was living in Stevensville. He seemed surprised by this. He then asked where she’d worked before. She replied that she’d been the manager of the Dairy Queen in the mall, which recently closed because the owners wanted to retire.
Many owners are retiring now. I wonder why.
Anyways, I suppose all three of those old people could be working at Ace Hardware on a Friday morning because they want to, because they get bored sitting at home.
But I think they need the money, and without that job, they’d soon be living in one of the three official homeless centers around town, or one of the unofficial camps.
Yeah, times are tough...and some $600 check and a few more weeks of unemployment are just holding off the inevitable collapse of the entire system. But a few more weeks or months is a lot of time for the ultra-rich to squeeze a few more of your pension dollars out of the stock market.
Let’s not talk about all the people relying on pensions that are soon going to be out in the cold. The trend now is for kids to move back in with their parents; in the coming years parents will be forced to move in with kids as their pensions disappear.
It’s frightening. Let’s ignore it and pretend the problem doesn’t exist. Maybe that’ll make it just go away.
Back in March the feds gave every American $1,200, but now they’re only going to dole-out $600.
Do they really think people are going to spend that in the wider economy? I think most will use it to get food, gas, and maybe an extra month of rent. Struggling small businesses counting on the holiday season to pull them through for the year won't get a penny of that $600.
And then it’ll be gone, and the American people will have their hand out once more.
How long do you think that $600 is going to last people that have nothing? And why do they have nothing? Why, for years and years, did these people live hand to mouth, never saving a penny?
They’re just as bad as these local governments, whom I guess they took their marching orders from.
And if we do bail-out these stupid Americans and these even stupider governments, how long before they come back for more? Because it’s obvious they couldn't properly take care of themselves in the first place. Do you think they’ll suddenly learn how if you keep handing them everything?
I don’t.
I think we should have ripped the Band-Aid off months ago.
We’ll have to eventually, and the longer we put it off, the more painful it’s gonna be.
And I think that’s the idea. For the ultra-rich, the longer we wait the worse the inevitable situation will become...but for whom?
Not them. No one’s going to take a pitchfork to their gated-community. Instead we’ll blame each other, using our cancel culture and racial animosities and political hatred to tear this country apart (we've been doing so most of the past four years already).
The rich will watch from their castles in the clouds, laughing as they take what miniscule assets we have left.
