The U.S. economy seems to be improving, even though the Obama administration is pushing up energy prices by making coal fired power plants unprofitable. The huge supplies of natural gas and cheap petroleum brought about by the fracking revolution in the U.S. and OPEC’s response of pumping more crude to drive the fracking operations out of business because of oversupply seem to have mitigated the expected increases in energy costs for the moment. But that does not mean that the economy is healthy, and the indications coming from China suggest that we could be in for another world-wide disruption that could be even worse than the great recession of 2009.
The US economy has only been supported by the vast money printing, known as quantitative easing, and the suppression of interest rates. The feds raised rates last month after nearly a decade and will be forced to suppress them again. We have and enormous, completely unrepayable debt that cannot tolerate a rise in rates. We will see another crash this year of historic proportions and it will be followed by a lowering of rates, if it doesn’t happen beforehand, and another squashing of rates.
Wal-mart just announced that they will be cutting 269 stores from their roster, beginning February 1st. Add this to the 6,000 other retail stores closures. The retail apocolypse continues.
Wal-Mart reports that it will try to place those workers into stores in the surrounding areas, though that will not be feasible for all. This is the first mass closing of stores for Wal-Mart in over two decades, and analysts are trying to determine if this is simply a strategic re-positioning, or an indication of other problems.
More on Wal-Mart strategy, page 2
Walmart tries to make 4 employees do a 9 person job and then punish them for not getting it done, I haven’t worked there in 8 years but I do know people that do. There are many places that do the exact same thing, taking advantage of people who don’t have many options for a job like college students. Parents can’t always help their children through college so for those who don’t receive any help forcing them to live in poverty is not right. The minimum wage doesn’t need to $15 but it still needs to be high enough that someone can live on.
Out of 11,600 stores globally, only closing less than 200. And no Super stores closing.
Good riddance ….
They drove out all the competition in my hometown, and then suddenly changed what they carried to a bunch of worthless c**p.
Yet another reason to boycott
If you are a Conservative, you should already know that there are at least a dozen reasons not to shop there. If you know how to shop, you can find the very same deals and prices elsewhere. If you just can’t bring yourself to stop going there, well, hate to see what happens when the REAL hard choices have to be made
THANK obama the muslim maggot for this! No company can pay $7.00 per hr. workers $15.00 per hr. and stay in business! Low skill, low pay, that’s reality people!
We can thank the libs for this they targeted (excuse the pun ) them and now we all have to pay with price hikes
GOOD. That means less chinese made$#%&!@*will come into this country.
When I see that in a local Wal Mart I’ll be helping restock that with a few packs of BACON!