Economic Stories of Relevance in Today's World -- January 19, 2014

What Recovery? Sears And J.C. Penney Are DYING - The Economic Collapse Blog - Michael Snyder - January 16th, 2014 - Two of the largest retailers in America are steamrolling toward bankruptcy.  Sears and J.C. Penney are both losing hundreds of millions of dollars each quarter, and both of them appear to be caught in the grip of a death spiral from which it will be impossible to escape.  Once upon a time, Sears was actually the largest retailer in the United States, and even today Sears and J.C. Penney are "anchor stores" in malls all over the country.  When I was growing up, my mother would take me to the mall when it was time to go clothes shopping, and there were usually just two options: Sears or J.C. Penney.  When I got older, I actually worked for Sears for a little while.  At the time, nobody would have ever imagined that Sears or J.C. Penney could go out of business someday.  But that is precisely what is happening.  They are both shutting down unprofitable stores and laying off employees in a desperate attempt to avoid bankruptcy, but everyone knows that they are just delaying the inevitable.  These two great retail giants are dying, and they certainly won't be the last to fall.  This is just the beginning...                            The Death Of Sears - Sales have declined at Sears for 27 quarters in a row, and the legendary retailer has been closing hundreds of stores and selling off property in a frantic attempt to turn things around.                   Unfortunately for Sears, it is not working.  In fact, Sears has announced that it expects to lose "between $250 million to $360 million" for the quarter that will end on February 1st.                      Things have gotten so bad that Sears is even making commercials that openly acknowledge how badly it is struggling.  For example, consider the following bit of dialogue from a recent Sears television commercial featuring two young women...                      The Death Of J.C. Penney - J.C. Penny has been a dead man walking for a long time.  In some ways, it is in even worse shape than Sears.                     If you can believe it, J.C. Penney actually lost 586 million dollars during the second quarter of 2013 alone.
How in the world do you lose 586 million dollars in three months?                   Are they paying employees to flush giant piles of cash down the toilets?                  This week J.C. Penney announced that it is eliminating 2,000 jobs and closing 33 stores.  The following is a list of the store closings that was released to the public...


THE RETAIL DEATH RATTLE- Washingtons Blog - Jim Q - January 19, 2014 - If ever a chart provided unequivocal proof the economic recovery storyline is a fraud, the one below is the smoking gun. November and December retail sales account for 20% to 40% of annual retail sales for most retailers. The number of visits to retail stores has plummeted by 50% since 2010. Please note this was during a supposed economic recovery. Also note consumer spending accounts for 70% of GDP. Also note credit card debt outstanding is 7% lower than its level in 2010 and 16% below its peak in 2008. Retailers like J.C. Penney, Best Buy, Sears, Radio Shack and Barnes & Noble continue to report appalling sales and profit results, along with listings of store closings. Even the heavyweights like Wal-Mart and Target continue to report negative comp store sales. How can the government and mainstream media be reporting an economic recovery when the industry that accounts for 70% of GDP is in free fall? The answer is that 99% of America has not had an economic recovery. Only Bernanke’s 1% owner class have benefited from his QE/ZIRP induced stock market levitation.                                    The entire economic recovery storyline is a sham built upon easy money funneled by the Fed to the Too Big To Trust Wall Street banks so they can use their HFT supercomputers to drive the stock market higher, buy up the millions of homes they foreclosed upon to artificially drive up home prices, and generate profits through rigging commodity, currency, and bond markets, while reducing loan loss reserves because they are free to value their toxic assets at anything they please – compliments of the spineless nerds at the FASB. GDP has been artificially propped up by the Federal government through the magic of EBT cards, SSDI for the depressed and downtrodden, never ending extensions of unemployment benefits, billions in student loans to University of Phoenix prodigies, and subprime auto loans to deadbeats from the Government Motors financing arm – Ally Financial (85% owned by you the taxpayer). The country is being kept afloat on an ocean of debt and delusional belief in the power of central bankers to steer this ship through a sea of icebergs just below the surface...

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” – Aldous Huxley

47% Of All Jobs Will Be Automated By 2034, And 'No Government Is Prepared' Says Economist - Huffington Post - Michael Rundle - January 17, 2014 - Almost half of all jobs could be automated by computers within two decades and "no government is prepared" for the tsunami of social change that will follow, according to the Economist.                               The magazine's 2014 analysis of the impact of technology paints a pretty bleak picture of the future.                 It says that while innovation (aka "the elixir of progress") has always resulted in job losses, usually economies have eventually been able to develop new roles for those workers to compensate, such as in the industrial revolution of the 19th century, or the food production revolution of the 20th century.                    But the pace of change this time around appears to be unprecedented, its leader column claims. And the result is a huge amount of uncertainty for both developed and under-developed economies about where the next 'lost generation' is going to find work.                     It quotes a 2013 Oxford Martin School study that estimates 47% of all jobs could be automated in the next 20 years...              The Economist also points out that current unemployment levels are startlingly high, but that "this wave of technological disruption to the job market has only just started".                              Specifically the Economist points to new tech like driverless cars, improved household gadgets, faster and more efficient online communications and 'big data' analysis to areas that humans are quickly being superceded. And while new start-ups are raising billions, they employ few people - Instagram, sold to Facebook in 2012 for $1 billion, employed just 30 people at the time....


John Williams interview - USA Watchdog.com - Greg Hunter - January 5, 2014 - John Williams of Shadowstats.com has a grim view of 2014. He says, "It's really going to be a currency panic . . . when the fundamental selling pressure really starts to pick up, when the selling gets heavy . . . in turn, the weakness will be seen in a spike in oil prices and a spike in gasoline prices." Williams says there will be a panic out of the dollar and he predicts, "Once you see a massive sell-off here, I see the game as being over." Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he goes One-on-One with economist John Williams.