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February 10, 2009
Favorable Weather Boosts Mall Traffic
Warmer weather brings shoppers into the malls. According to our calculations, the overall temperature across the U.S. this past weekend was significantly warmer than average. Regions along the Eastern seaboard saw the warmest weather this weekend (with respect to the average temperature) of the season, reaching as high as 25 degrees above average.
Unseasonably warm weather really helped the malls!
December 3, 2009
Early promotions fail to deliver in November
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Retailers, hurt by unseasonably warm weather that damped demand for coats and sweaters and consumers holding out and delaying purchases, failed to deliver November same-store-sales improvements, setting the stage for a highly competitive December.
Unseasonably warm weather really hurt the malls!
December 7, 2009
Ahead of the Bell: Mall traffic weak, analyst says
Icy rain and snow hit parts of the Northeast and Southeast, which kept consumers indoors, Lazard Capital Markets analyst Todd Slater said in a note to investors.
There seems to be a weather glut. Somebody needs to do something.
How many people work for the U.S. federal government?
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The new administration is talking about cutting the number of federal
government employees.
This raises the question of how many people are employed by the...
1 hour ago
7 comments:
Stag,
Glut! Very fitting word.
Everywhere I look I see a glut. Houses, commodities, production capacity, unemployed workers, commercial real estate, computing capacity, restaurants, retail, etc. Quite remarkable.
There is a fly in the ointment though - demand.
The last frontier of huge profits was financial engineering. But even that has been exposed for what it really is - financial tomfoolery.
Making money from money is no longer a sure thing. And more and more people are accepting that notion.
How long will it be until people come to the realization that the more Goverment intervention in the eCONomy will only make matters worse? I'm shocked at how financial professionals are embracing Government intervention (Buffett on several occasions).
Return OF capital is the order of the day, not return ON capital.
It's the DEBT! It's the distribution! The cult of the e-CONomist must end. It's a destructive religion.
That's the view from my bear perch.
mab,
Peak AAA credit ratings!
We had a glut through much of the last century but we've managed to "financially engineer" most of the inventory. Now there seems to be an actual shortage. Go figure.
Pfizer Gets Downgraded, Just Four AAAs Remain
http://indexbeating.com/2009/10/22/4-aaas/
Stag,
From the link in your comment:
A quick side note–Moody’s signaled today that the US government could lose their AAA rating due to the $1.4 trillion budget deficit. Based on our national debt of almost $12 trillion and AAA rating, our national equity is implied to be about $150 trillion, or 0.15 quadrillion!
Bernanke is hoping that our net worth (equity) is too low. I'm not hoping for anything but given the facts I think household wealth is still overstated even after the recent plunge.
$150 trillion! No wAAAy!
Things are worth less in a glut, especially with a backdrop of weak demand. It's as simple as that. Government spending will mask things but the pundamentals remain. Take away the QE, the other Fed support, the $1.5 trillion in deficit spending and this eCONomy is as dead as fried chicken.
mab,
"Take away the QE, the other Fed support, the $1.5 trillion in deficit spending and this eCONomy is as dead as fried chicken."
Don't give me this "foreign policy" stuff. I call it contemptible horse shit! You just want to buy yourselves a country like as if it was a stolen TV set. Then, you launder hot goods and dirty dealings through something you call "foreign policy." My God, America's a democracy. We're not some international fried chicken chain! - Jack Issel, Head Office, 1985
Stag,
Oil and gold continue to get powned. When will people learn that you can't protect purchasing power by buying over-priced assets?
There are many investments worse than cash. You'd think by now this simple dictum would be understood by everyone.
mab,
The strength in the euro was the straw that broke the back in my opinion.
It struck me as a "the grass must be greener on the other side of the fence" play.
I could be wrong, but packaging up subprime crap and calling it something stable was tried once before. Or have people already forgotten about structured investment vehicles?
At least the dollar's crap was at least partially priced in. Everyone already knows our currency is sitting over the septic tank.
Greek Debt Threatens the Euro
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/dec2009/gb2009128_445076.htm
"The lack of concern over budget discipline in countries like Spain, Italy and Ireland would spread like wildfire across the entire continent."
Stag,
It's not just the Euro, the British pound is no gem either.
The big British banks have been getting old yellered lately. Today was a no exception with Barclays (BCS) down ~ 5%, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) down ~ 8% and HSBC (HBC) down ~ 2.5%.
Residential and commercial real estate prices are lower than they were 5 years ago. Stocks are only marginally better. Corporate debt assets have definitely benefitted from the Fed's low interest rate policiies, but I just don't believe that all these big banks have miraculously recovered.
I don't trust the marks on bank assets. Absent accounting forbearance, I think most big banks are broke.
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