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Retail Sales Head to South Pole
Now that Christmas is over it’s time for more depressing economic news: retail sales this holiday season were awful. According to MasterCard Inc.'s SpendingPulse, total retail sales, excluding automobiles, fell 5.5% in November and 8% in December from the same time last year. The numbers are far worse than predictions, the most pessimistic of which predicted a 1% drop. “This will go down as the one of the worst holiday sales seasons on record," said one retail consultant. "Retailers went from 'Ho-ho' to 'Uh-oh' to 'Oh-no.'" Luxury goods, formerly untouchable, were the hardest hit, falling a whopping 34.5%.
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I don't buy it. (No pun intended.) Are major retailers angling for a middle class bail out?
This economic downturn made for the most pleasurable and family oriented Christmas in years in our house!
absent the million $$ christmas bonuses on wall street, guess Tiffany's , Neimanns, had a difficult time selling to the disenfranchised.. which is mainly the rest of us.. can the days of conspicuous consumption be over?? a return to values based relationships/? I'm not holding my breath, but slightly hopeful.
The way I see it, the economy tanking gives people a reason to feel it is okay NOT to spend. People were spending as much over the holiday season -on themselves and others, before, and probably will after this recession as well, not because they want to spend and buy more things but because they feel they have to because that is what everybody else was doing. Right now, the economy is on everybody's lips, and everyone seeming to pull back gives people a reason not to do what they already don't intrinsically enjoy doing...
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