Bloomberg Writes: Wal-Mart Touts $98 TV in Weakest Holiday Season Since ’09
U.S. retailers are discounting earlier than ever as they brace for the weakest holiday shopping season since 2009. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is dangling a 32-inch flat-screen TV for $98, down from $148 last year. Sears Holdings Corp. has waived layaway fees and its Kmart chain is introducing a rent-to-own program. More than a dozen retailers are opening earlier, or for the first time, on Thanksgiving Day. Among the attention-grabbing stunts: a $1 million jackpot for one of the first shoppers to visit Gap Inc.’s Old Navy chain on Black Friday.
Faced with wary shoppers and a shorter holiday season, retailers are piling on deals as they jockey for market share during the most important sales period of the year. For the fourth year in a row, disposable incomes in 2013 have only inched up. As result, low-income Americans will again have a less-merry season than affluent consumers, who are more flush thanks in part to surging stock markets
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Just as I have predicted in my previous post about 6 weeks ago “Who Else Wants To Cancel Christmas?” this Christmas retail shopping season will be a terrible one.
The question is why? After all, Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen, President Obama are all claiming the economy is doing better, the unemployment rate is going down and the real estate sector has made a full recovery. Plus, the stock market is hitting all time highs and if you listen to financial media the stock market is ready to go up another 50% in 2014. So, what gives? How come no one feels it.
It’s very simple. The above mentioned things are merely an illusion. The average American family hasn’t benefited from any of those things. The financial bailout has been designed to bail out financial institutions and to make the rich richer by offering a select few access to FREE credit to speculate with. Credit that largely has been unavailable to average Americans. Basically it is an unsustainable financial bubble that will blow up in 2014.
I really hate Christmas, but I know that many people love it. So, here is my advice. First, wait for as long as you can to buy Christmas gifts this year. There will be huge discounts as we get closer to that MAGICAL f&#*ing day. Second, enjoy it this year. The Christmas of 2014-2017 will be terrible after the bear market feasts on the economy.
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Sorry. Christmas Has Been Officially Cancelled.