The Wall Street Darling

Yesterday, it was announced that retail numbers in the US had “crashed”, a grim reminder that all is not well in MAGA-Land.  It was predicted by several retail analysts that there would be more retail store closings in 2019.  The continuous downtrend of retail does not bode well for us customers as shopping choices are disappearing.

Wall Street was down several points on the bad retail news.  But then suddenly, magically, a hero emerged to save the stock market day, the store with the smiling faces!  Yes, the King of Discounts has become the “Darling of Mainstreet”, rescuing all those downtrodden investors looking for an answer to their investment prayers.

The discounter smashed all anticipated sales numbers for the holiday season and profits for the year 2018, eclipsing their old record.  Wow, that is amazing!  Really, “but wait there’s more”, the story isn’t exactly as it seems.  The store with the smiling faces has closed some of its locations including some of its shopping club properties.  And in addition to that, they have also reduced the number of people who qualify for full-time hours and benefits.

So, to become a darling on Wall Street, all you have to do is keep screwing people out of pay, benefits and a quality way of life.  This leaves the totally disgruntled “associate” in the stores, unwilling to help customers with their shopping needs and questions (I recently wrote about that).  It has created an environment that is at best toxic and totally undesirable for customers.  However, they are partying in offices on Wall Street.

Surely it is obvious, even to the most uneducated of people that our economy is not booming, at least not for the lower 90% of our population.  Sure, the upper 10% of the population has grown their money significantly, this especially true of the top 1% of earners.  This is being proven daily by the seemingly endless number of store chains who are either filing for bankruptcy or going out of business completely.  The only somewhat-healthy store chains left in the system are the big discounters.

There is little question that customers are not able to spend much money at this point—they are tapped out.  Additional information that was reported indicated that the early release of food-stamp payments scheduled for February played a big role in the total number of profits for the holiday season.  Once again, we see that everything is geared towards corporations and Wall Street while main street is left to rot in the wake of capitalism.

At some point, this whole thing is going to implode, leaving nothing but gated communities and peasants living in pleasant valley.  Meanwhile, we customers continue our trek to find a decent world in which to buy our goods,

Talk To Ya Later

The Grumpy Old Fart Customer @2019 All Rights Reserved