The discount stores should do well. I was in a busy Ross Store yesterday and noticed many people shopping that were in a higher financial bracket than usual. I love Ross Stores. I spend hours in the back with the housewares collections. If it is hand carved and beaded and I don't know WHAT it is; I have to buy it. Ross Stores has what Pier One has but cheap, but better than Hobby Lobby's great collection of imported stuff.
I would like to buy American goods but I can't find any.
And I like to buy imports from under deveolped countries with workmanship. I just like the choice. Prices are high and the quality of Chinese imports isn't just very low, they are poisoning us daily. There is no amount of saving cash worth bringing in leaded, melamined, drug laced goods from China. Hasn't anyone thought about their rabbit fur trims, so stylish and cheap. Looks just like my angora kittie to me. We send our chicken to China to be cut-up? To a country with contagious bird disease? How do we know what we are getting back? What is chicken nowadays? I think we send them our chickens but are getting back some sick kind of replacement flesh. There is something very wrong here.
I do not feel that the small merchant in general will be doing well this Holiday season. People will spend to hide from the fact that everyone isn't only worried about their futures but many are losing hope for any kind of future to be proud of. Driven to swallowing our pride and shopping discount and generic. Not much room for the small independent merchant and artist/crafters. Meanwhile after receiving all that bailout monies the banks/credit card companies took our credit from us, after hooking us with their constant begging us to borrow, now basically calling in loans and constantly changing their agreements. Don't you love 'we are changing our policy...' That is why shopping is down, the credit card companies want their money now, before any real crackdowns are initiated to curb them. Beefing up their personal accounts - I want to be king of the world! What is the rush all of a sudden? Am I the only one feeling the heavy breath of the credit card shylocks?
Example: I had to cancel a wholesale order because citibank lowered my credit to my balance. (That reverberates to your credit rating, because now you owe all your balance and that don't sit well with credit ratings.) I had to write the wholesale company explaining my inability to place the order. They kindly wrote back stating they understand; amex just did it to them. Do you see the snowballing implications?
Plus forcing people to repay loans quickly and hitting everyone with their fines at the bottom of the economic swing forces people to sell themselves short of everything it took a lifetime to accumulate; sell during a down market, lose their special holdings: metals and coins, jewelry, collector cars, personal belongings, memories. What a fantastic plan to destroy hope and recovery for all but the corporate leeches. Attack of the Giant Leeches - a great B movie but a bad economic prediction. Hath they no shame?
Pychologically it is an underdeveloped immature willful child that sees only themselves, wants it all, making the rules to benefit themselves while developing a punishment conglomerate to strictly punish and financially burden unfortunates with heavy fines - necessitating the whole lawyer scam.
They say people are taking advantage of the corporations with their frivolous lawsuits. Sick lazy bad people who were stupid enough to let themselves become victims? Aren't those the victims responsible for spoiling the whole country? But who is placing the lawsuit ads for the generalized call to anonymous victims? Who is causing the 'frivolous lawsuits' to happen? Who plagues us with tv ads to sue? Well, who makes all the money from lawsuits? Not the average joes. Bottom feeding greedy assed ambulance chasing lawyers! That is who! Why are victims demonized? Who turned that around? You must beware of a society that demonizes the weak; eats and spits out the young and elderly; separating and preying upon the poor, the homeless, the uneducated as something less than human - all the meantime praising the Lord in very showy ways; for the love of money, luck of birth, hording, judging elitists - just like Jesus taught. (must be a different Jesus than I learned about)
Who shot the American Dream? Where's the buying power to keep the ball rolling with lowered credit limits, no work, salaries dropping, health costs wiping you out whether you pay for insurance or pay out-of-pocket for every problem.
