Reports on the beginning of the Christmas holiday shopping season do not look good for retailers. CNBC is reporting the Black Friday sales were down a significant 28.3% from pre-pandemic levels in 2019 [link]. The difference was not made up inside on-line sales as Cyber Monday had the first drop in sales in the history of tracking on-line sales [link].
The financial pundit spin, intended to protect the Biden administration, includes a talking point that U.S. consumers decided to make their holiday purchases early this year, therefore the holiday spending metric no longer applies.
As the narrative is built, people were concerned about shortages of products so they purchased them early in the year. While part of that is likely true, early shopping is not that unusual and cannot account for such a massive drop in purchasing.
The same narrative was used to explain the drop in Cyber Monday sales: “Shoppers nationwide spent nearly $11 billion on digital sales on Cyber Monday, a tracking firm said — a decrease of 1.4% from last year and the first decline ever for a major shopping holiday.” […] “It spread out e-commerce spending across the months of October and November.” There’s virtually no limit to how the financial media will avoid identifying the real motive for declining sales, inflation and the lack of disposable income.
Inflation continues to be a major issue for all middle-class workers, and there does not appear to be any end in sight for even more price increases. As gas, energy and food prices jump so significantly the amount of disposable income available for other non critical purchases becomes limited. This is a simple Main Street checkbook reality felt by most Americans and willfully avoided by the Wall Street pundits.
The question of spending and purchasing priority is best identified by asking consumers the question: Can you afford to spend more this year, and will you?
Lower your expectations for a high standard of living, and everything will be OK and help the people keep things in perspective. The American dream is just that, now an unattainable dream. And we are expected to believe that 81 million Americans voted for this?
As I pointed out yesterday, the Biden PR said that Inventory was good after meeting with retail executives.
My point was that if inventory was good amid a shipping crisis, then sales sucked. Maybe the subsequent press conference was canceled so that Biden could warn his Wall Street buddies.
Solid points. If Biden is claiming inventory is good, and he undeniably did………..he hogtied himself.
If inventory is good, then nothing should stand in the way of sales now, should it?
Inflation is taking a massive toll on sales.
The financial media, and media in general, can spin the living daylights out of it all they want, but the people KNOW they don’t have extra money because literally everything costs more under Biden.
I wonder how the financial media will spin it when the sales don’t come and companies report lower earnings?
They can lie all they want to protect Biden, but the people KNOW the inflation is very real. And about to get even more real.
I have been dieting so have not paid too much attention to meat prices. As I passed the discount meat bin, I saw some great looking rib eye steaks. At half off they provided sticker shock. Original price was $22 lb.
……..and it’s just gonna get worse.
I hope you achieve all of your goals on the diet.
Aggravatingly enough, I need to get back on my normal diet, which for me is low carb. This is gonna get expensive in a hurry.
tuna fish
peanut butter
Yes, checked out some ribeyes today – package of 2 thin sliced, which is what I usually buy – $17 – $20 per package (each a pound or so).
Used to regularly purchase these say once every couple of weeks at $8 – $10 per package.
At the prices they are going to be……..they will not sell.
I doubt many are selling at current prices.
Ditto on the dieting thing, and went to the grocery here in ND where I am.visiting family. Thought ribeyes would be nice for my son’s 40th birthday dinner. Price=$23.59 per lb!!!
The feed lot sold that fat steer for 1.20-1.30 per lb.
The farmer sold that feeder steer at 700lbs for 1.30
The packer is selling it to you for 4.00 lb (hamburger) to probably 30.00 lb for top cuts.
Housemate tried to buy fresh sliced corned beef for reubens the other day. They don’t even carry it in the deli section anymore. They said when the price is $15 per lb they have no use for it.
I have very much tightened my pocketbook – due to not only inflation but the loss of my income via the mandated shot.
FJB
Aggie girl is fond of, and acts on “snapping shut the wallet”. And honors that mantra. All that stuff sitting in the anchorage, will have higher prices, just because…
Isn’t CRAMER supposed to be a finance commentator?
Perhaps he is showing the way; “Blame the unvaccinated, its all THEIR fault!”
“WHATS all their fault?”
“WHATEVER your upset about,..the economy, climate change, rascism,…whatever is ALL THEIR FAULT!”
inventory may have been large. We saw the ships on the coast. The problem is that the specific order fulfillment has been hit or miss.
I may have thousands of red corduroy pants on the shelf. But who wants to buy that? Both statements can be true and the economy still stink.
The FTC wants information from Amazon, Walmart and other giant stores about empty shelves and rising prices
By Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN Business
Updated 11:39 AM ET, Tue November 30, 2021
Oh, good. So a problem largely of the government’s creation will be aggravated by government regulators. I love this plan! Can hardly wait to be part of it!
And that data will be made available in January. This is when panic will set in for Americans. Remember TP and paper towels? That crisis will be nothing compared to not being able to buy food.
There have been posts about Treepers noticing scarcity on their store shelves- I’m one of them (Central Ohio). For those that haven’t witnessed it yet in your stores, it’s coming. When people run out of supplies in their location, they will venture to your location. If you haven’t prepared for your home, please consider doing so this month. I know this sounds doomsday, but better to be prepared. If nothing happens, you will at least have less trips to the grocery in future months.
You really believe he knows anything about this, he is in charge of nothing,
” so that Biden could warn his Wall Street buddies.”
I think that meeting was totally fake. No names for the “retail executives”, no photos. It was a lie.
Seems like November is Black Month and Friday-Monday sales were cannibalized early.
” Smash and grab December ” will break all records this year.
Let’s Go Brandon!
F Joe Biden!
Time to go back to the original phrase!
So many retailers are “woke” thinking that makes them immune……when do they realize they are just as expendable as we are in the Build Back Better scheme. And will they realize in time to perhaps turn their attentions elsewhere.
Surely, there are some CEOs who aren’t in the protected group.
The Salvation Army is woke and their anti-white policy is the reason they will not be receiving any donations from our family this Christmas.
The Monday after Thanksgiving, when we were at a local mall, we noticed that none of the tags had been taken from the annual Salvation Army Christmas tree. They have some nerve insulting people who give them items that they in turn sell for profit. Maybe now they can depend on illegal immigrants for donations.
They didn’t think “what goes around, comes around” or that their arrogance would “come around” to bite them where they sit.
I for one would prefer not to patronize any of these woke companies. Apparently, they have forgotten how their organizations became the enterprises they are today. Over the years, many millions of people of all backgrounds spent their hard-earned dollars in their stores. Gradually they became the wealthy businesses they are today.
Now these very same companies are insulting everyone as thought we are all so much garbage. The founders of some of these businesses must be turning in their graves. Where would they all be today if the founders had the same rude and insulting attitudes of these cheap, two-bit self-entitled executives who think that people cannot live without their equally cheap, made-in-China junk?
They are in for a rude awakening.
imho, the incorrect pic of the Crimson Kenyan is posted with this article.
The one with him and FJB laughing together in the limo would be more appropriate.
They DGAF about the troubles and concerns of Mr. and Mrs. Main Street, USA.
I was out Sunday at a shopping area I was at about a year ago. This past Sunday, it was sunny and fairly mild for December. Last year, it was raw and rainy all day.
It was jumping last year.
This year, it was dead for the Sunday a few weeks before Christmas.
I was at a Mall in OKC in Friday and is was busy. Not Black Friday busy. And the number of people walking around with bags was not what I remember from 2019. I found a parking spot in under 5 minutes outside the Dillards.
I went to the Mall of Georgia and the shopping was even less impressive on Sunday.
I wonder how long high prices can stay high if people aren’t buying what the stores have to offer? At some point the stores have to bite the bullet and mark down just to move their inventory out or they will be filing bankruptcy. That situation is the beginning of disinflation. That condition usually front runs a slow down and a recession.
Not necessarily disinflation or deflation, that would imply the money supply has shrunk, when it hasn’t. Fed is still printing more now, printing it and then getting it back as debt, plus foreign held debt. Hyperinflation is still a real possibility should or when this house of cards tumbles, inflation is still real, especially compared to even as recently as 10 years ago. I think at this point what we’re seeing is the limit of price rationing on luxury goods. Wages have remained fairly fixed even as costs have gone up, that has to bite back at some point. Already has if you look at how long a car or mortgage payment has to be amortized so folks can pretend to afford a new car or home. A good bit of the luxury spending came from all those checks in the mail from Uncle Sam in the last quarter of 2020 and the first couple quarters of 2021, but that high is gone. Just wait until next spring when all that monthly child tax credit comes home to roost and people find out they’ll receive little or no refund.
We aren’t buying their stupid wokism. They all think they can be insulting to people, and then charge them through the nose.
The cure for high prices is …High prices. And maybe a lynching or two.
We were surprised at how light holiday traffic was on the roads and in the stores over the holiday weekend. My kids flew out Sunday, 1pm, and there was nobody in line at airport security. I flew out of Denver at 6am Monday on business expecting lines…10 min to get through Security.
The real test isn’t any given sales day like the somewhat arbitrary “cyber Monday”. People just don’t shop like that any more. Retail sales for November will be more telling, imho.
Speaking only from personal experience, we only go out on Black Friday to people watch, and rarely shopped online on Monday. I suspect society is catching up with us.
The MSM and their trained monkey pundits can spin but this latest buck passing will go nowhere.
92% Say Inflation Is A Serious Problem; 56% Say Build Back Better Plan Will Make It Worse (scottrasmussen.com)
I’m wondering if the recent Twitter decision is to ring fence the cultists from what is about to happen. My journalist friend whose not quite premier division, more like second tier, but has high level contacts, gets the feeling ‘something is happening behind the scenes’. He’s not been told anything explicit but detects a shift in attitudes and a certain nervousness amongst our self-styled ‘betters’.
Maybe lots of people (enough) have just gone Galt. You don’t have be a titan of industry to go Galt. Just have to say “F” it, I’m done playing games.
The 1 lb bag of dried lentils i purchase regularly that has been $1 or less for years has been $1.36 since October.
One of the things they pretend not to know,…is the tenuousness of their situation.
Like a high wire performer, deluding themselves they are walking on solid ground.
It works, until a gust of wind comes along,…perhaps it is begining to get breezy?
This illegitimate administration, has spent disgusting amounts of money on cra, and as a result has nothing to show for it. A fake, failed administration and an equally failed economy. Either because of incompetence or by design, failure defines this administration.
IF everyone did their shopping so uncharacteristically and ahistorically early, why, pray tell, FJB, might that be?
Let’s see! They’ve unleashed a virus with mutations that is killing mostly Americans, in America, while costing them trillions. They are letting in ALL foreigners as illegal immigrants WITHOUT flu shots, but putting them on welfare immediately. They intentionally destroyed pipeline jobs, drilling and all efforts to maintain energy independence for the foreseeable future. They are doubling down on defunding police and engaging the FBI & DOJ weapons against the American cultures. They are alienating the American culture from the military and federal bureaucracy that has been bought and paid for with tax money for over 200 years. They are intentionally goosing up inflation and destroying the currency at the same time.
How many more clues do you need to be convinced they want DEATH TO AMERICA, and that includes YOU & your loved ones?
It will get much worse. This is becoming a common tactic on the left. Forcing businesses to block other legitimate businesses.
https://thefederalist.com/2021/11/30/15-states-threaten-to-pull-600-billion-from-banks-that-wont-give-equal-service-to-energy-industry/
100%
Howdy BKR!
Good to see you posting!
American hegemony must be undermined and destroyed if you want to “reset” the global economic and political system. The Federal Reserve has sucked America dry and is now moving on to the next phase in the plan.
They want a multi-polar world instead of the unipolar world of today.
Why aren’t the homeless or the illegals dying in droves? They are unvaccinated.
This. 100%.
Years of scrimping and saving, raise two kids, paid off the house and retired in 2020 with SS and small retirement savings and the wife still working. With very low expenses, looked forward to finally spending a little on whatever I felt like, fishing equipment etc… With the great Trump economy and the prospect of 4 more years of it, I had a few months of really feeling secure and satisfied. Now those democrat busybody, meddling bastards have upended everything. I’m back to watching every penny. I spend on prepping now instead of fun stuff. I’m glad I have a two years supply of firewood built up and a full freezer of elk and deer. They are even messing with both my kids who are about to lose their jobs. I am filled with anger and loathing.
Trust me, Scepti, you are in good company.
I feel for your kids.
If you look at GDP-per-capita growth as of 2019 (in 2011 Dollars) from 2007 you will see we have been in a depression. Compare the Long Depression 1873-1896, the Great Depression (1929-1947) and what we should be calling the Silent depression (2007-202?)
Here is a link to Emil Kolinowski January Tweet where he charted the three periods. It is shocking.
https://twitter.com/EmilKalinowski/status/1355540535793082369/photo/1
Fu…k them back!
We are giving their middle finger back in their face
hit them back in their pocketbook already gave christmas checks to family to buy what they want with sale items even avoided mailing them to mn by giving them to family member who will be there hurt usps by only mailing 1/5 cards to those without email and no dems are on the list fjb
Who has money for gifts ………………… the money is going for food and energy.
In a way they are correct. The helicopter cash has not increased purchasing. It just brought future purchases forward in time. That means when we arrive at that future date the numbers will be down.
The goods purchased in May will not be repurchased in November. Those need have been satisfied and will not appear again for several years.
Now people are prioritizing goods that satisfy the lower levels of Maslow thearchy on need pyramid.
Let’s see, what did I buy over the weekend? I ignored Friday and Monday just to be stubborn. Oh yeah… I spent money on farm infrastructure, seeing as how we’re going to have a dark cold winter with no gas or food on the shelves.
I’m stocking up on canned goods and dog food. No Christmas gifts this year.
Good keep the dog healthy and alive , you might have to eat it him/her one of these days. Oh my G_D, can here it now, I am just kidding everyone. From one who has spent thousands on my pets.
Maybe not eat. However, another set of ears, and smell can protect you and your loved ones life. Just Saying
Yup. My German shepherd is awesome. Sadly, she is 10
One of my sheepdogs is ten also. Breaks my heart that she’s this old.
Honestly, this is the last month to “get prepared”. January will be a doozy- they are protecting FJB thru the holidays.
Bingo.
Ours is to our home , a new roof! Not as bad as feared but wow. Merry Christmas!
New furnace for us lol…
Remember that clear bubble wrap on winter windows is a great insulator. It can even be doubled up.
Merry Christmas, Dee.
Good
We did our weekly shop the Saturday after Thanksgiving (instead of Friday, when we usually do it.) There was almost NO ONE in the store.
I went shopping in several stores before and after Thanksgiving. Traffic was heavy in grocery stores, most people paid for their purchases in lines staffed by a cashier. Big box stores had few employees and checkout lines were mostly self-service. Toilet paper and paper towels were limited to one item per person. Traffic was relatively light in apparel stores despite healthy discounts.
I observed people purchasing canned goods, coffee, tea, cereal, rice, beans, snacks, cookies, candies, fresh and powdered milk, juices, eggs, bottled water, frozen veggies, breakfast items, flashlights, batteries, extra propane tanks for gas grills, herb plants, pet food, orders for cords of wood. It seems to me many people were practical not extravagant. Smart shoppers.
I went to the bank today and the drive through window was closed due to lack of employees. I had to do my banking inside. Odd times.
Not at all surprised by this, regardless of how the media spins it or how many CEO’s POTATUS mumbles to.
What’s worrisome is these full-blown marxists are such true believers, it will be hard to stop them. I thought POTATUS and his minions were bad enough in causing chaos in the economy with just his incoherent policies, but these clowns truly want to destroy everything.
I thought his energy policies and blocking of exploration was causing massive inflation, but this is far beyond intentionally throwing a bone to the greenies. They truly want to destroy the energy industry as we know it.
It would be interesting to get Sundance’s take on this.
States Financial officers telling banks they will pull $600 billion from their banks unless they stop their woke policy of not doing business with energy companies.
https://thefederalist.com/2021/11/30/15-states-threaten-to-pull-600-billion-from-banks-that-wont-give-equal-service-to-energy-industry/
I wouldn’t lean so far in front of my horse. November retail sales will be out soon, then we’ll know more.
I’ll just point out that the country as a whole is catching up with how my family has been shopping for years. We people watch on Black Friday, and Monday is a work day not a shopping day. Increasingly, we spend less at Christmas because Christmas isn’t about presents. Why are we waiting for December to buy something we need? If we have to wait for only December to buy something, do we really need it anyway?
Anyway, retailers have been pushing “black friday” pricing since late October. It’s smart to do because you don’t want to risk a lockdown on the biggest shopping day of the year.
I lean towards a YOY increase in Nov retail sales. It might still be down relative to 2019, but it’s probably up relative to 2020.
Small businesses are gonna get crushed, though. They can’t compete with Walmart Amazon Depot, and Black Friday shopping is probably still something small businesses depend on.
I run an online business. November sales are down nearly 50% y-o-y. Annual sales down 30%. US sales have fallen off a cliff.
😳
It looks like Musk isn’t the only high profile CEO selling shares in the company they run. Microsoft chairman satya nadella has shed more than half of his stake in the software giant in the past week.
nadalla sold nearly 840,000 shares of Microsoft just before Thanksgiving, netting him about $285 million in proceeds, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He still owns more than 830,000 shares of Microsoft , which are currently worth about $280 million.
Remember in 2008 when all those CEOs and politicians were retroactively found to have been selling off stocks ahead of the plunge…?
These guys are selling ahead of the tax rate increases
No and No.
I went from making more money than ever before under President Trump to being unemployed this year.
Very sorry to hear that.
So Lame-Brain Biden’s going to suppress demand for gasoline & energy.
… As if OPEC+ won’t immediately throttle back on supply to goose prices even HIGHER.
But…on a bright note… BlackSmashAndGrabWeek beforehand was wildly successful.
Lol! I posted almost the same thing before I saw your comment! 😂
A lot of the economy is what people expect their financial circumstances will be. If bad, they stop spending, economic activity tumbles, people lose jobs, so more people stop spending. Rinse and repeat.
Right now, people who pay attention expect a continuation of the full scale assault on the US from the economic front, the bioweapons front, and possibly other avenues. The natural response is to shift necessary spending to stockpile basic necessities and to nest egg anything left over.
Even those who don’t pay close attention are sensing looming recession or depression. Just the price of gas is enough to drill a hole in consumer confidence.
What’s funny is that simply putting President Trump back in office would solve the self-reinforcing psychological phenomenon in less than two months. Presto chango, restored economy.
In the meantime, any day I don’t make a purchase is a good one in my book. Trying to aim any purchases I do have to make to small businesses.
Haven’t been in a Target in almost a year. Christmas shopping in its satanic depths last year (it barely had any decorations and the ones it did have were in no way about Christmas) was enough to send me away from its doors forever. I can still feel the echo of the spiritual hangover from spending less than a single hour in its dystopia.
I disagree about turning the economy around in a dime. If Trump taught us anything it’s how to jumpstart an economy. The secret sauce is not pretending the economy is a capricious mysterious creature and that we are all helplessly enslaved to its whims. The American economy goes south when corrupt politicians use the U.S. people as their personal piggy bank and sell us out to gain power and line their own pockets. The American economy only fails when someone takes a wrecking ball to it.
If Trump gets back in, it will revive like a phoenix out of the ashes.
Ironically, I stopped shopping at Target about 15 years ago as they were among the first to go woke and take the Christmas out of the Holiday. It was all Happy Holidays and all that nonsense.
I had a big argument about Target (this is about 15 years ago) with my BFF. She loved Target and thought I was being silly. Well, today our kids are all 32/33. Hers are woke, BLM, etc. Mine is conservative, voted for Trump, looking for a girlfriend who is similar.
Funny, how much little things matter.
To answer your questions, Sundance: no and no.
1776 PART II
ATLAS IS SHRUGGING
I’ve been too busy fighting off my employer’s attempts to force vaccinate me or deprive me of employment come New Years Eve to think about gift shopping. I did however stock up on hygiene items, paper goods and shelf stable food.
I wonder what part if that drop is people opting into the emerging parallel economy rather than enrich the corporations that seem to have such contempt for us.
And on the inflation front
Washington, D.C. – The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) today announced the conforming loan limits (CLLs) for mortgages to be acquired by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises) in 2022. In most of the U.S., the 2022 CLL for one-unit properties will be $647,200, an increase of $98,950 from $548,250 in 2021.
How about;
“Due to already massive inflation, with the expectation it will go much higher, Consumers eliminated Holiday shopping entirely, focusing on purchasing FOOD and Fuel. This has been termed “going into SURVIVAL mode”.
This pattern is, realistically likely to continue for some time, and even become the New Normal, aka Bidenomics.
So, get used to it, cause it ain’t gettin better, any time soon!
At least we don’t have mean tweets, so theres that!”
I am spending $$ on food with long shelf life, seeds, survival products, oh, and wine. But I repeat myself. Christmas gifts this year will be 1. nothing made in China 2. mypillow products 3. products from local stores and farms. I will not set foot in a big box store and no Amazon. Amazing what you can do when you try.
I, too, was amazed at the low traffic on friday when I drove past several big shopping centers.
Our wealthy business class includes a lot of limousine liberals who embrace all the fashionable social liberal causes.
Gay marriage, abortion, gun control, even transgenderism.
But they have now made common cause with extreme leftists, who hate business and business people. They crave the death of American capitalism. Greedy liberals like Bezos and Zuckerberg have sold the rope the Marxists will use to hang them (apologies to Lenin).
Remember when idiots were claiming inflation was just going to be transitory? And we all knew it wasn’t. Well it’s official: It ain’t. Color me shocked.
https://therightscoop.com/fed-chairman-its-time-to-stop-saying-inflation-is-transitory/
Kinda difficult to get excited about anything these days.
JoeBama will complete his string pullers transitioning of America by the end of his term. BHO is very proud of him.
All part of the real plan, folks. Capitalism is slowly being suffocated in the West through a series of controlled demolitions. The elite want everyone else begging them for an alternative economic system, handing them power and whatever few resources remain.
They will never call it by this name but they are ultimately moving us toward global governance under a communist economic model.
Why else do you think nationalism poses such a threat to the globalists…
Great picture of good Old Saint Nincompoop! Stuff is just going haywire, here lately. “The transformation is not turning out to be what the boss told you it would be?” Huh, Barry. Communists always discover this pretty late in the game.
Are they counting the smash and grap looting? That was a big success! 😂
Right. And who wants to go shopping when flash mob looters are on the loose?!
Today is “Giving Tuesday” and even my normal email traffic for it is down. I wonder how dismal it will be.
They have been running sales since mid Nov. I’m afraid a more meaningful metric this yr will be Nov/Nov.
I ain’t doing anything extra to help out this administration.
Biden / Obama and their hellions are the enemy of #WeThePeople.
That includes the empty souls in the DC #uniparty as well.
We’re putting Christ back in Christmas…no gifts unless they’re sourced locally (not from big box stores, not from Chy-na).
“Plausible Deniability” is not leadership material.
And yet, the Biden family specialty since Joe got into office.
Joe is quite good at deflection as it has been his way for over 40 years now.
Neither inflation nor a lack of disposable income is affecting my household. We just refuse to pay for China’s abuse out of our own pockets.
My Christmas money will go towards helping those that are in true crisis. The wait staff, those who lost jobs due to Joe Biden and Fauci, and those afflicted by home fires.
I just hope my spoiled adult relatives can get over it!