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The World Socialist Web Site reports
US retail store closures for 2017 are on pace to exceed [those of] 2008, when more than 6,000 locations were shuttered. In the first three months of this year, 2,880 store closures were announced, compared to 1,153 in the same time period in 2008. If the current pace of retail bloodletting continues, total store closures could top 11,000 by the end of the year, an unprecedented number.
Along with mounting store closures, retailers eliminated 30,000 jobs in March, with a similar number cut in February, making it the worst two-month period for workers in the retail sector since 2008, when the economy was in the depths of the recession caused by the bursting of the housing bubble and stock market crash.
According to Retail Metrics, the combined same-store sales for retailers in the first quarter of this year is expected to rise only 0.3 percent, the worst quarter in four years. Current expectations are well below the 0.8 percent growth in retail sales which economists had predicted in February. Without positive sales growth posted by discount giant Walmart, the retail industry would have posted negative figures. The dismal first quarter of 2017 follows poor in-store holiday sales at the end of 2016.
Traditional retailers are being slammed by competition from Internet retailers, in particular Amazon. Even as many companies are increasingly turning to online sales in an attempt to shore up their poor in store sales Amazon continues to dominate, accounting for 53 percent of all online sales growth in 2016.
[...] While market analysts point to the competition from Amazon as a key factor in retailer bankruptcies and store closures, another factor is the underlying weakness of the American economy and years of wage stagnation for the working class. Wage growth has been flat since the Great Recession and monthly year-on-year increases have not exceeded three percent since early 2009. According to the Economic Policy Institute, average hourly wages are $3.22 behind where they would be if wages grew at 3.5 percent over the last decade.
Even as the stock market has boomed over the last nine years, thanks to an infusion of unlimited cash through quantitative easing and other measures, the real economy has not recovered from the recession. The economic growth rate has not exceeded three percent in a decade and was a meager 1.2 percent in the first quarter of this year. Nearly all of the jobs created since 2008 have been either part time or temporary.
[...] The last decade has seen a series of buyouts, mergers, and acquisitions by private equity firms as part of last ditch efforts by retailers to avoid bankruptcy [as well as] outright liquidation by corporate raiders squeezing every penny before liquidating or reselling them.
Are you passing more and more boarded-up shops on your outings? Has the effect of fewer and fewer consumers (fewer people employed locally) trickled down to your company yet?
(Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Saturday April 15 2017, @05:55PM (22 children)
All of the facts in the article are basicially right, but of course it being World Socialist they F up the analysis.
Retailers are closing, others are building as fast as they can ramp up. The most at risk stores are clothing stores. Clothing stores in malls are dying because malls are dying. No new malls have been built in over a generation and the existing ones are in what used to be good suburbs but those areas are now generally Hellish with vibrant diversity and the white middle class have fled to new refugee camps in the exurbs. Hellhole malls don't support yuppie / preppie clothing stores and you only need a couple of shoe stores to keep the vibrant diversity supplied with $200 sneakers. As Sears and JCP finish their long painful death struggles most malls are going to close, unable to even pretend to survive without those anchors.
Family Dollar and Dollar General are multiplying like rabbits around here though. Selling highly perishable women's fashion clothing at 500% markup (for a month then marking it half off, then 75% off, etc....) might be going away but anybody who can sell cheap to people without the means to buy everything on Amazon can still thrive.
Amazon is the elephant in the room though for all discussion of retail. As long as they have the biggest lobbyist in DC (Bezo's Blog) there will be no questioning their decades long practice of selling everything at a loss. So long as Wall Street can be sold on the idea the tactic will eventually lead to Amazon essentially ruling the world they will keep dumping cash in to cover the losses. Which is of course made a lot easier when Yellen keeps the free money spigot flowing to Wall Street. Because if Amazon does end up the only retailer they think it will be a money geyser so they have to "get in."
The economic growth rate has not exceeded three percent in a decade and was a meager 1.2 percent in the first quarter of this year. Nearly all of the jobs created since 2008 have been either part time or temporary.
They can correctly observe the problem but not a one of them can identity the reason this recession has endured. Obama and Obamacare. Obama set out to destroy economic activity and succeeded. Private sector economic activity is chaotic, it creates winners and thus inequality and Obama SAID he was quite willing to trade economic growth for greater 'equality' and yet people are still shocked when he did exactly what he said he would do and got exactly the results he admitted would be the consequence of his policy. Equality under socialism comes by dragging the successful down, never by elevating the unsuccessful. Because elevating the low is hard, many theories abound but none have a proven track record; dragging the high down is simple and works every time.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15 2017, @06:23PM (15 children)
If you would care to look further back than your chosen liberal scapegoat, you would see economic decline began in 2001 when Bush did 9/11.
I remember the excuses employers used during the decade:
2001: Looks like war coming. Time for budget cuts.
2003: Another war! More budget cuts.
2005: Hurricane! More budget cuts.
2007: Market crash! More budget cuts.
2009: War rages on. Support the war effort with more budget cuts.
2011: Hey did everybody get laid off already? Whatever, let's have some more budget cuts.
The 21st century so far has been one downward spiral circling the drain.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday April 15 2017, @06:33PM (4 children)
You forgot the important one.
2000 CNN: "Elect Gore to keep these great economic times rolling"
2000 CNNFN: "Weesa all gonna die!" The .com / .bomb was already going off.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15 2017, @06:40PM
So with the dot-com bubble bursting, what Bush did was: start a bunch of wars, and not only neglect to raise taxes to fund the wars, but also to go so far as to cut taxes on the rich, which incentivized the rich to hoard money, and which led directly to our economic troubles today.
Bezos has too much money. Tax him.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15 2017, @07:12PM (2 children)
2016: Jill Stein elected president; starts building/rebuilding USA's infrastructure.
Rejects wars of aggression and further military build-up.
Starts to down-size USA.mil.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday April 15 2017, @08:35PM (1 child)
Does posting about the events of an alternate universe in which Jill Stein showed competency and got more than 500,000 votes in 2016 make you feel in control?
The success of Trump and Bernie (Bernie's was a relative success) have cemented the two party system even more. Extreme outsiders will come into the two party system for a chance at actually achieving victory. But they will be tempered by other factions of the party. Congress will remain under 1% independent.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15 2017, @09:28PM
I'm pointing to flaws in the system and overlooked people/ideas.
Bernie's platform and Jill's platform overlapped on many points and large bunches of folks liked what Bernie was saying.
Lamestream Media being what it is, few voters even knew that Jill existed--even after Bernie got stabbed in the back by the Establishment Blues.
As a practical matter, I see 2 likely routes to displace the race-to-the-bottom GOP in subsequent elections.
1) Progressive Democrats take over the Democrat Party (the way the Tea Party took over the Republican Party) and they get candidates who aren't just GOP-lite on the ballot and elected.
This seems entirely do-able.
In his weekly Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Ralph[1] often mentions how few people it takes to get change going.
2) An entirely new broad-based Progressive political party.
This seems much less likely to succeed.
Now, if it does go somewhere, cribbing off of Jill's platform would get them going in a good direction.
[1] BTW, regarding an earlier story here, it was Ralph who got bumped from Allegheny Airlines in 1972 and it was his lawsuit that went all the way to SCOTUS which established airline travelers' rights.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by HiThere on Saturday April 15 2017, @07:04PM (7 children)
Various people have been predicting this outcome since the early 1950's. Actually since Kark Capek's RUR. Actually, if you use a wide definition, since Plato (I don't remember if he was the actual author) when the prediction "When the looms run themselves we will no longer need slaves." was made.
The problem is blatant enough that you don't need any detailed knowledge of the situation to realize it exists. When work is automated, what happens to those who used to do the work? In most societies the answer has been "Let them die.". This is what inspired the Luddites. This is what the slogan "The sheep are eating the men!" was about. That's what Bob Dylan's song "Hollis Brown" was about. Previously, though, there's generally been other work that needed doing. Now ... well, so far there's still other work that needs doing, but very VERY rapidly less and less. And unpredictably less, in that you can't predict with any certainty that the job you've entered a five year training program to qualify for will be there for ANYONE when you are trained. This used to take centuries to happen. Even in the 1800's it took multiple decades. Now... ? I think it's still generally a decade for a through replacement, but the time has been shrinking. During the 1970's I was told that it generally took 20 years. I don't know whether that was true at the time, or was rather a truth from an earlier time. Currently it seems closer to a decade on the average. But I'm including "redesign" into the average, and I'm not sure that was true of the earlier figure, so it may not be shrinking as rapidly as it would appear.
And, of course, there's a large component of "what is the job"? Is a job where you punch pictures on the cash register the same as the same job where you enter prices of the order? Is it the same job as the earlier one where you had to add up the prices to reach the total cost? What about the job where you stand at a desk and watch customers swipe their orders past the item id scanner? (Yeah, I mixed fast food "restaurants", ordinary restaurants, and grocery stores. But "fast food" restaurants are a recent phenomenon. They aren't really the same thing as the drive-ins that they replaced. So the very business that the original job existed in has pretty much disappeared.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15 2017, @08:18PM (1 child)
Human life has lost its value, because there is a major surplus in the supply.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15 2017, @08:53PM
Yet, if you go back to 2000,[1] things were purring along pretty well.
There hasn't been a giant increase of the number people since then.
What there has been is an increase in the number of dishonest people trying to extract wealth without producing anything of value.
...and there has been no increase in the number of those dishonest people going to prison.
...or prosecuted, or even charged with crimes.
In 2012, you had the chance to make a difference with the Justice Party's presidential candidate Rocky Anderson (a former prosecutor), whose platform was fundamentally about jailing the crooks.
Jill Stein has had that as a plank of her platform every time she has run as well.
[1] A similar observation could be make WRT the period before the start of the Great Depression in 1929.
A giant difference between the era of The New Deal and now is the unwillingness to dedicate the readily-available labor of the unemployed to building/rebuilding public infrastructure.
Look around. There's plenty of work to be done.
What is lacking is the will among the Capitalist class and its toadies in gov't to make an investment in a better society.
It's the Guilded Age all over again.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jmorris on Sunday April 16 2017, @12:59AM (4 children)
When work is automated, what happens to those who used to do the work?
If you leave the market free enough it handles the problem, even when it is far more extreme and quick than what we see now. Go read Marx's Capital and see what things were like in his day. While his solution is insane, he does pretty accurately much describe the situation in his day. Improvements in farming tech made most of the peasantry redundant and they all flooded into the cities and the dole. This flood of labor contributed to the Industrial Revolution, along with a few Capitalists (that itself being a new invention btw, and the merchant and artisan guild classes didn't like it at all.) being free to invest their own money into new industries to utilize all of this suddenly abundant labor. The early days were rough for all, the workers had hellish conditions, the owners were in a constant race to chase the tech curve and stay in business. But the progress was very rapid, on a historical scale it all happened in a blink; before a barely civilized society using tech that had been mostly unchanged for a thousand years and a couple of generations later we had internal combustion starting to replacing steam.
We are heading for a similar time of great upheaval, if we are smart enough to get the government out of the way the things that must happen will happen, entire industries will be destroyed, and fortunes destroyed with them. New industries and new fortunes will be made. The trick is keeping the people with the fortunes likely to be destroyed from buying laws that will only make it worse for all.
Economics is a human activity, by definition everybody will eventually produce enough value for those with the robots to trade them food and shelter for. Remember, the whole point of all the automation is increasing productivity and output, which drives prices down. The two curves must always meet, production without demand is pointless and unmet demand will also balance one way or another.... often badly for a bit so lets avoid that, K?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday April 16 2017, @02:15AM (2 children)
One doesn't need cur-throat economic competition to drive progress anymore.
The limits of the nature and increased demands of a growing population provide today enough challenges for progress.
By the USian measure, the Western European countries are deep socialist (they aren't actually), yet one can see progress coming from there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Insightful) by jmorris on Sunday April 16 2017, @04:18AM (1 child)
Western Europe is dying. Almost exactly like the old Soviet Union was dying and for the same basic reason: no point in living. Ultimately that is the final fatal flaw with Communism / Socialism, the utter incompatibility with humans. Humans aren't ants. You managed to convince entire populations that your "Glorious Future" wasn't preventable, so they didn't fight you, they just gave up instead. So what 'works' or doesn't in Europe won't really matter unless the new owners (i.e. the hordes of military age Muslim men streaming in by the millions screaming for infidel blood and white pussy) decide to adopt modern socialist European values, which is highly unlikely.
It was dying long before they, in desperation to obtain the warm bodies to fuel their welfare states, opened their doors to invaders. People gave up and stopped living and making babies. Only part of the plummeting birth rate can be attributed to feminism, abortion, destruction of family formation, etc. The rest is simply loss of hope for a future worth living in. The old line was that when you abandoned faith in God you would believe in anything. But it turns out there is something far worse, believing in nothing.
There is now zero doubt that your Socialist kind is done, it is Evolution in Action. Natural Selection works on cultures as well as individual genes. What we fight for now is preventing your dragging us all to oblivion with you as you self destruct every society in the West.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @01:45PM
You are pretty vociferous for a representative of a dying empire.
A pity it won't help you, not matter if you have faith/belief or not.
You have good chances to live and see your dog-eat-dog capitalism go the way of dodo - it will happen quite quick, it may not be pleasant though.
Yes, the orange one will trigger it, even if he doesn't intend to.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday April 16 2017, @05:04PM
Yes, it handles the problem. But a part of the way it traditionally handles the problem is by letting a bunch of those made redundant die.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2, Informative) by anubi on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:32AM (1 child)
Consider the last 40 years... as our bankers keep offering "new, lower rates!" [macrotrends.net]to entice round upon round of borrowing sprees to finance price hike after price hike.
So, where did the money come from? We certainly did not earn it. We borrowed it. From people chartered to print up debt notes. People who have only 10% of what they loan out, yet they are entitled to collect usury on the entire amount, despite the fact they never had the money to loan.
They are at the end of their rope.
We are now at the edge of the curve... and they are starting to set another collapse in motion.
Note the upturned tail.
They are again starting to pull the rug out from everyone.
Debts due and payable. But no-one will have money to buy your stuff at the price you paid for it.
Because they don't have access to the cheap money you had when you bought it. So you can't sell and get your money back.
Foreclosures loom.
Followed by governmental bailouts to the banks.
How many times do we have to watch this thing repeat before we know what they are up to?
We do not have enough elevation anymore to "drop the rates" again to egg on yet another spending spree to bail everyone out.
This next one is gonna be a wowie... its gonna be interesting how they handle this when the interest rate is already hovering at zero. Pay us to take a loan?
And the good old USA is hardly in a position to start actually earning its stuff instead of playing financial games. The factories are no longer here.
This is gonna get interesting. Please oh please stay out of debt!
That's how they do us in.
Get us to owe them a dollar, then pull the rug, then when we can't pay, they foreclose.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday April 17 2017, @05:58AM
And the good old USA is hardly in a position to start actually earning its stuff instead of playing financial games. The factories are no longer here.
This simply isn't true. US manufacturing is very healthy. However, it's heavily automated and doesn't need very many workers. So the US makes a lot of stuff, but fewer and fewer can afford it, and the manufacturing isn't doing much to support the economy by employing workers, it's just bringing profit for the shareholders.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Saturday April 15 2017, @06:54PM (3 children)
Hellish with vibrant diversity and the white middle class have fled to new refugee camps in the exurbs. Hellhole malls don't support yuppie / preppie clothing stores and you only need a couple of shoe stores to keep the vibrant diversity supplied with $200 sneakers.
When they say "thinly veiled racism", I think a little more effort than that is expected.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday April 15 2017, @06:57PM (2 children)
Jesus fucking Christ, I can actually see the crazy-eyed expression he must have been wearing when he typed that. You know that look some people have where they're reeeeeally intense and you can see the whites of their eyes above and below their irises? Yeah. That one.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15 2017, @10:46PM (1 child)
I'm not sure. That strikes me more as the cold, steely kind hate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @09:07AM
It is, but true racists enjoy their self-perceived superiority. It makes them smug.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15 2017, @10:17PM
Thank you for continuing to show everyone what a jackbooted nutjib you are. I really appreciate it! Takes the pressure off responding to your idiocy, now everyone can just see for themselves. I guess you aren't taking Trumps "winning (hahahaha)" very well.
Oh ya, for your blatant racism: fuck off back to whatever hole in the ground you spawned from.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday April 17 2017, @04:57AM
All of the facts in the article are basicially right, but of course it being World Socialist they F up the analysis.
Ok, but...
Clothing stores in malls are dying because malls are dying. No new malls have been built in over a generation
You don't even have your facts right, not by a long shot. This last statement is just plain wrong: lots of malls have been built in the last 10 years. The thing is, you don't see many of the traditional, enclosed "malls", now they're building "lifestyle centers" (or "outdoor malls" as the non-marketers call them). They're really the same thing, except they don't have a roof and tend to be a little more spread out. Some of them are mixed-use, and have shops on the ground floor with apartments on the upper levels, the way downtowns used to be. But the shops are all the same as at the traditional malls mainly, it's just the format is slightly different.
and the existing ones are in what used to be good suburbs but those areas are now generally Hellish with vibrant diversity and the white middle class have fled to new refugee camps in the exurbs.
Yeah, that's nothing new, "white flight" has been around for at least 60 years now. Those exurbs are where they're building the "lifestyle centers". The white middle class isn't going to stop shopping, but they're doing a lot more online, but they still want a place to walk around and go to restaurants and buy ice cream and such. The big thing that's different now is that many of them, particularly younger ones, are moving back into the cities (called "gentrification").
Amazon is the elephant in the room though for all discussion of retail.
What I don't understand is why anyone is still buying a lot from them. So much stuff on there is counterfeit these days. 3 years ago, even 2 years ago, it was great; today, not so much. I feel safer buying on Ebay.
> Equality under socialism comes by dragging the successful down, never by elevating the unsuccessful.
Except that western European nations seem to get along just fine with universal healthcare and other systems that give everyone coverage. But people like you seem to think it's a good idea to just let people die on the street if they don't have insurance.