Some more retail DOOM PORN !

Another factor going on is this Deisnduatrialization in the US, and international trading. Our debt to China is part of this debacle also, as is pointed out in article.

How long can this nation continue to consume far more wealth than it produces? The trade deficit is one of the biggest reasons for the steady decline of the U.S. economy, but many Americans don't even understand what it is. Basically, we are buying far more stuff from the rest of the world than they are buying from us. That means that far more money is constantly leaving the country than is coming into the country. In order to keep the game going, we have to go to the people that we bought all of that stuff from and ask them to lend our money back to us.

Seems kind of crazy huh? In a society that depends on consumer spending, when things get tight, as they already are, people reduce their spending and this has to affect things as well.

We have become great at consuming wealth but not so great at creating it. But as a result of running gigantic trade deficits year after year, we have lost tens of thousands of businesses, millions upon millions of jobs, and America is being deindustrialized at a staggering pace.

Follow the money and much of it goes over seas. Gotta get those maximum profits!

It has been estimated that the U.S. economy loses approximately 9,000 jobs for every 1 billion dollars of goods that are imported from overseas, and according to the Economic Policy Institute, America is losing about half a million jobs to China every single year.

Yikes, that can't be good. So I submit that this deindustrialization is part of the issue today, and jobs are drying up.

reply to post by 727Sky


This does not surprise me at all. It was not too long ago I noticed that many chains were building stores within miles of each other. Also, if a chain would build a store at a certain place, it's competitor built one across the street.
The next generation of jobs will be in the delivery and private security sectors.

Better update your resume....

reply to post by Floydshayvious


I agree. And - to your point - in Asia, so much of the service sector is already automated.

Across all sectors of the economy, just as soon as they can replace a human with a robot or some form of automation - they do. The rate at which they do so will only increase.

reply to post by kosmicjack

Indeed, within 5 years robots will replace humans at an accelerated rate.

Within five years we will have a system that truly knows more than a human could ever know and is more efficient at delivering information. (emphasis added)

Source
We got a lot of factors working against us, and college degrees don't seem to offer much security these days either. This TPP or Trans Pacific Partnership will be affecting jobs and businesses too. Man we have a lot of things stacked against us now and mores in the future it seems.

reply to post by spurgeonatorsrevenge


Many of the good paying jobs disappeared, businesses found that their profits increased after the layoffs. The new jobs created are not as financially beneficial to the workers. Many jobs are now subcontracted and the workers haven't the benefits that were in the original jobs. Some places are doing better but most places aren't. There has been some improvement in some fields, but many college graduates are not getting jobs because many of the baby boomers lost so much money they did not want to retire as planned.

It depends on what kind of area you live in I suppose.

reply to post by 727Sky


You got that right. I do't know how this works neither. In my book, you need a job to have money and be a costumer.

reply to post by AnteBellum


Last I heard they had gotten approval, so my guess is that they are in the making and planning phase. Lol.

Who here thinks an income cap is a bad thing? 1m a year or so? Could solve alot of problems... money would trickle down instead of being stockpiled.

I work for one of those larger retail chains that is closing hundreds of stores, and online sales really is a HUGE part of it. For example, we're pushed to get a certain % of online sales in store at the kiosk, which does benefit the store because the customer cashes out at the register. Also when customers come in the store, on their receipt there will be coupons, however the coupons ALMOST ALWAYS are for online purchases only, so it's like "hey! thanks for coming in the store, but next time here's a coupon so you can just order online" And it really does take business away from the physical stores, because the coupons are like $30 off of an $80 online purchase and free delivery. You would be stupid to not order your items online if you can get $30 off just for ordering online, plus our delivery is usually next day. I mean the company is still making money but the individual stores get punished for not meeting their sales goals. The store I work in just got our hours cut so we're open less each week now. We are now open 13 hours less a week, they also took around 70 hours out of our payroll hours. Then we get in trouble for bad customer service, because there's only one person on the sales floor because we don't have the hours to staff more people, which also makes our sales go down. But hey, that's retail I guess.

spurgeonatorsrevenge
this does not surprise me, many of the business on the list have failed to keep up with the implications of E commerce. Others serve junk to a populace that is waking up to the dangers of poisonous eating habits...

The world will keep turning, there are MANY MANY new businesses that will replace them

edit on 6-4-2014 by _BoneZ_ because: MOD Note: Excessive Quoting and How to Quote

here here,

also pricing is becoming more important. some of those mentioned do not have great value, either over priced crap, or low quality over priced crap.

Also, I keep thinking of Quizno's. man i love some of their food. but the PRICING! ffs, they were almost twice as much per meal as their competition! i would end up spending $11 for a meal, where as the 3 other sub shops gave me something tasty for $6-7.

reply to post by 727Sky


Talk about redistributing the wealth - and creating more consumers with no buying power. This may take a while to play out, but....


F&S&

rickymouse
Their economic recovery is a joke. Most people are working at jobs where they make less money now. The economy is only showing it is recovering because they changed the way they interpret the evidence.

I don't understand how they can think the public is so stupid. Almost everyone can tell that the economy has not improved much. Next they will be saying that the Dow Jones is what says the economy is improving, they won't even look at jobs.

I think you're right. How many 'recent hires' have you spotted? You hear some report on the news about X number of jobs being created ... but can you believe that? Are there new faces entering the workforce ... or did someone switch positions.

The OP put out some pretty damning info on business closures. Where did the employees working those jobs go?

Yes. The economic recovery is a joke ... and it's based on lies people are all too ready and willing to believe. I wonder what the next distraction will be.

727Sky



73 Liquidation World (Big Lots Canada)

Ironic?

reply to post by speculativeoptimist


I recall this was a discussed and agreed-upon economic strategy - to pitch the US as a consumer market to the world, not a production market. The ole boys thought it was quite legitimate, Keynesian I think they were.

reply to post by soficrow

Oh yea, it's a money generator, it's just a matter of where that money ends up and much of it won't be for American workers.
The TPP will create more environmental issues too, but that is another topic.
As mentioned people ordering online is affecting the retail world too and over time, more people will begin to order straight from manufacturers, further eliminating middle men. Then the technological aspect of being replaced by robots is kicking in soon.
A sign o the times as well as a globalizing effort, bye bye jobs.

reply to post by speculativeoptimist

...As mentioned people ordering online is affecting the retail world too and over time, more people will be begin to order straight from manufacturers, further eliminating middle men.

Maybe - but people tend to be dissatisfied when what they get is not what they thought it would be. ...People where I grew up had no choice but to buy out of 'catalogues' - and when it finally became possible, were quite willing to drive 60 miles to the nearest big retail store. We'll probably see a pendulum swing on this one too. But in the meantime you're right, the world will be remade.

You could go through every one of those chains you mentioned and show how extremely poor management and shoddy goods have contributed to their decline. These aren't Mom & Pops; they are chain stores that all use the same basic business model from the last century. Their executives all went to the same B-School. When you look at the underlying infrastructure, they all work the same way. You could transfer between B. Dalton--Bookseller and Household Finance Corporation and feel right at home in about two days. Oh, wait. They no longer exist!

The basic idea was that you could consolidate upper management and distribution in one place, control inventory costs with massive volume buying, and control cookie-cutter branch outlets for maximum profits. You only put stores in high-traffic areas such as malls, where the demographic work was already done for you. You paid high rents at malls, but in return you had high traffic. This resulted in big box stores taking over a large segment of retail, usually with only a couple of competitors: Examples include:

Lowe's vs Home Depot
Barnes & Noble vs Borders
Staples vs Office Max

They all sold the same products exactly, so discounting became a cut-throat business with little real difference between the chains. Now enter Amazon.com, higher gas prices, and high speed Internet and suddenly the rules change. Where I could feel some sympathy for the Mom & Pops, the independent bookstores, I don't have much for the average big box retailer. But, of course, it isn't all about corporate management types, but also about retail positions which also dry up.

Retail doesn't pay well on the cash register, but it pays a bit better in retail management and distribution. A Wal-Mart store manager can make $80K easily. Not only that, all these stores pay high rents to the building owners, business rates for utilities, and are a source of tax revenue for local government. Now I don't like government either, but I enjoy having the roads in good repair and the fire department available of I need them. But all this suffers when retail fails. That IS the "local economy."

That doesn't mean there's no money being spent. It's just you and me ordering online and having it delivered by Fed-Ex in a day or two. the UPS guy still has a job, but if some uneducated floosie who lives in a trailer park loses her half time retail sales clerk position, what do we care? After all, what does she know how to do but scan a barcode I could do myself more efficiently in a self check-out kiosk, say "Have a nice day" and not mean it, and make babies. That's about it. Friendly and efficient self-service is where it is at.

But you ain't seen nothing yet. Just wait for the robots. ATMs and self-check are already here. Next your Big Mac will be auto-pay and auto-cook. Warehousing? All robotic. Name something that won't be done by robot. Haircuts, maybe. The next twenty years are going to encompass more change that we've seen in the last 100. Hang on.

I admit to being a dinosaur.
I shop at locally-owned stores for the things I need. I look at labels for country of origin and avoid Chinese-made products if at all possible. Over the past 20 years I've become increasingly frustrated at not being able to buy simple products---like a coffee maker or hand vac---made in the USA---or even in North America. I have no problem buying Canadian-made products but I find precious few of those either except for some really fine woodworking tools.
Electronics made in the US? Forget it. Sharpies used to be American-made but recently I've noticed they are now made in China and the reason I noticed was the crappy quality I noticed. They leak, they don't write on anything and fade.
For all the talk of replacing jobs with robots, I'm thinking it is going to be very difficult to replace my plumber, my electrician and the tree trimming guys with robots. It is just sad that the products they use to repair my home aren't made in this country but in some country where there is slave labor disguised as "enterprise zones."
Lucky for me, I still have a local computer whiz who built my computer and keeps it going along using minimal "made in China" parts. But he does tell me that there are some components which are only made there.
So, I'm a dinosaur and my kind will be dying off in a few years...

soficrow
reply to post by speculativeoptimist

 

...As mentioned people ordering online is affecting the retail world too and over time, more people will be begin to order straight from manufacturers, further eliminating middle men.

Maybe - but people tend to be dissatisfied when what they get is not what they thought it would be. ...People where I grew up had no choice but to buy out of 'catalogues' - and when it finally became possible, were quite willing to drive 60 miles to the nearest big retail store. We'll probably see a pendulum swing on this one too. But in the meantime you're right, the world will be remade.

I think it will shake out eventually. There will be some things that we like going to shop for and some things we prefer to order in. The winners will be the ones who correctly identify what those things are and move to take advantage of that (or get lucky because they were always right there).

There are also going to be some things that just cannot be done by a robot unless a robot can completely replace a human being, and when that happens, we'll need to fear the Cylon uprising.

reply to post by diggindirt


I'm with you, I try to boycott as much imported crap as I can and shop locally especially for food. If people realized how powerful their buying power can change things we could easily change the madness.

I buy all my stuff from online store and online supermarket because home delivery service...It's waste my time that I have to carry those food from the supermarket to my home.