Sunday, January 24, 2010

Here Come the Retail Layoffs...

Walmart kicks it off by sacking 11,200 Sam's Club workers, which represents 10% of the Sam's Club workforce Article Link.  This is somewhat surprising because Wall Street and the financial media have been selling the idea that discount retailers were thriving in this environment.  To make matters worse, U.S. retail credit card defaults hit near-record levels during the holiday season.  Here's the link:  Credit Card Defaults

I went on record last month with a prediction that the 1st quarter would see a huge surge of layoffs in the retailing sector and that at least one major retailer would hit the wall.  We know Zales is in restructuring negotiations with its creditors, so I get 1/2 credit for the bankruptcy call so far. 

It looks like Wall Street is looking for a +4% GDP number for Q4 this Friday.  This will be a bogus number.  Recall that Q3 GDP was initially reported to be 3.5% but was revised down to +2.2% by the final reading reported in December.  I suspect that any uptick in Q4 GDP was fueled by heavy Government spending, something which will continue but which will pile even more debt onto the hopeless Treasury debt-load.

3 comments:

  1. Kranny how about the greeters? Did they spare the greeters? I hope they spared the greeters. I know a great many people who will be vying for those jobs.

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  2. That was wierd, my verification post code was "yotaxess"

    Are you inputting those Kranny?

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  3. LOL. No I don't set the verification code thingy. For some reason the movie "Soylent Green" popped into my thoughts when I read your post about the greeters LOL.

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