America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning

[Horn]

The so-called retail apocalypse has become so ingrained in the U.S. that it now has the distinction of its own Wikipedia entry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retail_apocalypse).
The industry’s response to that kind of doomsday description has included blaming the media for hyping the troubles of a few well-known chains as proof of a systemic meltdown. There is some truth to that. In the U.S., retailers announced more than 3,000 store openings in the first three quarters of this year.
Announced store openings and closingsExcluding grocery stores and restaurants
http://gold-silver.us/forum/img/01-store-openings-closings-total-medium.pngCumulative openings

Cumulative closings


20K
15K
10K
5K


2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018


Source: ICSC Research Team and PNC Real Estate Research

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-retail-debt/

[madfranks]

Brick and mortar stores are losing so much ground to online shopping and shipping. It's not a difficult trend to understand.

[Horn]

What about the systemic and total economic collapse mentioned later on in the article?

Includes Bitcoin too, i guess.

[Joshua01]

Let's get it over with, I'm tired of working and don't want to wait a few more years to retire
What about the systemic and total economic collapse mentioned later on in the article?

Includes Bitcoin too, i guess.

[Cebu_4_2]

Let's get it over with, I'm tired of working and don't want to wait a few more years to retire


You work? I'm broke and I don't... might be why I am broke hmm...

[Joshua01]

Could be, yeah! ;)
You work? I'm broke and I don't... might be why I am broke hmm...

[cheka.]

Brick and mortar stores are losing so much ground to online shopping and shipping. It's not a difficult trend to understand.

yup. fade the hype with both hands. shifting buying patterns are hardly a freak-out event like in thread title. unless you are stock holder/employee of a stubborn dinosaur :o

another freak out would be in the empty strip shops and malls -- CRE. those spaces being replaced with warehouses designed for small parcel high volume shipping. it's a great time to rent CRE for a small biz - plenty of carcasses laying around begging

a cursory glance at retail sales confirms shifting, not collapsing

[Horn]

That 33% exposure of local banking to retail relestate looks daunting, also that graphic of locals where 35% of employment is retail sales.

[old steel]

Oh it gets better, much better thanks to

http://www.24hgold.com/english/news-gold-silver-what-could-go-wrong-.aspx?article=11725632480H11690&redirect=false&contributor=James+Howard+Kunstler


Everybody and his uncle, and his uncle’s mother’s uncle, believes that the stock markets will be zooming to new record highs this week, and probably so, because it is the time of year to fatten up, just as the Thanksgiving turkeys are happily fattening up — prior to their mass slaughter.

President Trump’s new Federal Reserve chair, Jerome “Jay” Powell, “a low interest-rate kind of guy,” was obviously picked because he is Janet Yellen minus testicles, the grayest of gray go-along Fed go-fers, going about his life-long errand-boy duties in the thickets of financial lawyerdom like a bustling little rodent girdling the trunks of every living shrub on behalf of the asset-stripping business that is private equity (eight years with the Deep State-ish Carlyle Group) while subsisting on the rich insect life in the leaf litter below his busy little paws.

Powell’s contribution to the discourse of finance was his famous utterance that the lack of inflation is “kind of a mystery.”

Oh, yes, indeed, a riddle wrapped in an enigma inside a mystery dropped in a doggie bag with half a pastrami sandwich. Unless you consider that all the “money” pumped out of the Fed and the world’s other central banks flows through a hose to only two destinations: the bond and stock markets, where this hot-air-like “money” inflates zeppelin-sized bubbles that have no relation to on-the-ground economies where real people have to make things and trade things.


Powell might have gone a bit further and declared contemporary finance itself “a mystery,” because it has been engineered deliberately so by the equivalent of stage magicians devising ever more astounding ruses, deceptions, and mis-directions as they enjoy sure-thing revenue streams their magic tricks generate. This is vulgarly known as “the rich getting richer.” The catch is, they’re getting richer on revenue streams of pure air, and there is a lot of perilous distance between the air they’re suspended in and the hard ground below.

Powell noted that the economy is growing robustly and unemployment is supernaturally low. Like his colleagues and auditors in the investment banking community, he’s just making this shit up. As the late Joseph Goebbels used to say describing his misinformation technique, if you’re going to lie, make sure it’s a whopper.


The economy isn’t growing and can’t grow. The economy is a revenant of something that used to exist, an industrial economy that has rolled over and died and come back as a moldy ghoul feeding on the ghostly memories of itself. Stocks go up because the unprecedented low interest rates established by the Fed allow company CEOs to “lever-up” issuing bonds (i.e. borrow “money” from, cough cough, “investors”) and then use the borrowed “money” to buy back their own stock to raise the share value, so they can justify their companies’ boards-of-directors jacking up their salaries and bonuses — based on the ghost of the idea that higher stock prices represent the creation of more actual things of value (front-end-loaders, pepperoni sticks, oil drilling rigs).
The economy is actually contracting because we can’t afford the energy it takes to run the things we do — mostly just driving around — and unemployment is not historically low, it’s simply mis-represented by not including the tens of millions of people who have dropped out of the work force.

And an epic wickedness combined with cowardice drives the old legacy news business to look the other way and concoct its good times “narrative.” If any of the reporters at The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal really understand the legerdemain at work in these “mysteries” of finance, they’re afraid to say. The companies they work for are dying, like so many other enterprises in the non-financial realm of the used-to-be economy, and they don’t want to be out of paycheck until the lights finally go out.


The “narrative” is firmest before it its falseness is proved by the turn of events, and there are an awful lot of events out there waiting to present, like debutantes dressing for a winter ball. The debt ceiling… North Korea… Mueller… Hillarygate….the state pension funds….That so many agree the USA has entered a permanent plateau of exquisite prosperity is a sure sign of its imminent implosion.

What could go wrong?

[old steel]

And then just one click away is, Holee, Mr. Debbie Downer himself.

The plan comes together?


By Bill Holter

My original thought was to write further about the left turning on and eating each other. The volume of news, “who” and the timing seemed to indicate something very big coming down. However, another story broke out of the blue this morning from Saudi Arabia that supersedes (though very well may have connections to) the feeding frenzy.

Crowned Prince Mohammed bin Salman had 11 princes and 38 current and former senior officials arrested on corruption and money laundering charges. http://www.reuters.com (http://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-arrests/future-saudi-king-tightens-grip-on-power-with-arrests-including-prince-alwaleed-idUSKBN1D506P). Prince Alwaleed bin Talal being the most notable arrested. The thought process of “why” becomes scattered after the initial and obvious thought MBS is consolidating his power after being named as next in line back in June.

Adding to the confusion is this news of an offer of arms to the Saudis from Donald Trump https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-05/trump-tells-king-salman-he-supports-more-saudi-arms-purchases I would also point out I do not believe there is any coincidence at all the move was undertaken in Saudi Arabia at the same time Mr. Trump is arriving in Asia.

Of additional note was a surprise tweet from Mr. Trump “lobbying” for the IPO of Aramco to be undertaken on the NYSE (by the way, the Chinese have expressed a 5% interest in this offering).

There are other, smaller clues but I think we have enough here to see what may be taking place.


It is my opinion, the Saudis are now triggering a move to accept yuan for oil. Those arrested can be seen as players “with” the deep state and aligned with “Hillary’s crew” for a lack of better term. Alwaleed is a major shareholder of Citi and Twitter, a Trump basher and financial supporter of Hillary’s campaign.

A look at the others arrested show long time support of “the U.S.” and the petrodollar. One might think Prince Salman undertook these arrests with a “lean” toward the West, based on who was arrested I highly doubt it but we will soon see. Remember, Prince Salman has recently met with both Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin.

Saudi Arabia also announced the purchases of S400 weapons from Russia (I asked at the time if this was not a very bad sign for Saudi Arabia’s allegiance to the West?).

I believe Mr. Trump very well may find out a deal is already done and nothing he can do will stop it.

I also believe had Hillary been elected, this move would have happened much sooner but we will never know. The next week(s) could be breathtaking. The likely scenario in my opinion will look like this; Saudi Arabia announces they will accept yuan for oil. Mr. Trump will be informed of this, not by the Saudis but likely from the Chinese/Russians.

I believe he will be told this deal is already consummated and not to interfere with “trade”.

The Chinese and Russians know exactly how crooked and fraudulent the U.S. has been in business dealings these past years … they also know of the human horrors (do you remember Mr. Putin calling back ALL Russian school children a while back?)
Mr. Trump also knows and can have no rebuttal. They and he also know how levered and insolvent the dollar system has become. Whether the Chinese want to move toward an SDR based as some speculate (I don’t think so), yuan based or anything else I do not know.

What we do know is they have publicly since 2009 said the “dollar system is not fair” and that the reserve currency must be stable …and that the dollar is not. And remember, the New Silk Road will include and represent over 40% of the world’s population, it will only grow from here!


As I mentioned early on in this writing, I do not believe the frenzy of truth bombs where the left is turning on itself is exclusive from the “petro-yuan”. The world became fed up with the lack of “rule of law” in the US, this is not new. The fact so many are turning on Hillary et al at the same time means something very meaningful has changed. If I am correct and indictments begin to snowball, the US will publicly be seen as the “swamp” it is. Confidence in anything “American” will be broken, this is especially true for the common stock of the United States …the dollar!


Internal turmoil and the uncovering of massive fraud and corruption will go hand in hand as cover, or “reason” for a move away from the dollar as the world’s settlement tool. This I believe is exactly what China/Russia want and will demand. The U.S./Mr. Trump will not be able to say “trust us” we will fix it. It is too late in too many venues from banking/finance/trade etc. to turn this back. The plan has been laid right before our eyes to see and I believe the plan is now coming together.

Maybe I am wrong and this is not about the petro-yuan? It is about “something” and something VERY VERY BIG! I know of nothing bigger than the status of the reserve currency. As I see it, the only possible response other than acceptance by the U.S. is war? We can only hope and pray war is not our response but should not be bet against.


Standing a very attentive watch,

Bill Holter
Holter-Sinclair collaboration