Both Walmart and Home Depot disappointed the stock market with their lower-than-expected earnings, and their failures are freaking everyone out. From the NYT:
“Many customers are running out of money at the end of the month,” said H. Lee Scott Jr., the chief executive of Wal-Mart.
He also blamed Walmart’s “poor clothing and home d
cor products.” (Insert Nazi T-Shirt joke here.) “Li’l Franky” over at Home Depot took a more subtle approach, blaming poor sales on a “tough selling environment.”
“The housing market remains difficult, and our performance reflects that,” said Mr. Blake,
America, you need more money!
Two Giant Retail Chains Say Sales Are Slumping [NYT]
(Photo:adrock38)
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@Ringofire: You’ve got the wrong person to kill on your list. Sam Walton isn’t the reason Wal-Mart is crap. His successors are. There are quite a few stories of how when Sam was in charge, Wal-Mart was more patriotic. It would buy American whenever possible. Wal-Mart actually purchased goods from American manufacturers that were about to go under to keep them afloat. His successors on the other hand (currently the devil himself, Lee Scott), have been about nothing but profit. Once Sam was dead, the floodgates opened and Wal-Mart became the retailer we all loathe. This change is exemplified perfectly by the change in name of one of the store brands at Wal-Mart from Sam’s AMERICAN Choice to simply Sam’s Choice.
@badgeman46:
1) $14.95/mo
2) $12/mo (prepaid)
It’s not very nice, or very smart, to come in here and start lording your perceived fiscal-management superiority over a bunch of people who don’t have cable TV.
Back in 1999 I came up with an economic theory that people wouldnt have as much money around now. It has come true. People give their money away to just about everyone. Not to mention, the average joe spends buko bucks on luxuries. How can I say this? How much money do you pay to sit on your butt and watch tv and use the computer. Most of you pay about 100 a month, sometimes much more. Those are luxuries. Rabbit ears are free. You can still surf for 10 bucks a month. How about your cell phone? Betcha most of you pay another 100 bucks for that. Iphone? Thats a $2,000 commitment. On top of this, the general public are being suckered into never owning anything. Everything from DVRs to software, now requres a subscription. These are things you should be able to outright purchase, but y’all spend thousands to have this stuff. And y’all bitch about gas prices, when you have no problem paying starbucks 5 bucks for burnt coffee, or buying water, which is practically free, at a dollar a pop. Its the economics of the guilded age, people do not understand the concept of rich or poor because even poor people can finance the crap out of a big screen tv.
sorry, it wasn’t showing I posted for some reason. Didnt mean to repear myself.
@CumaeanSibyl: I never said it was to anyone specfically, rather the general population as a whole as no concept on what is a necessity and what is a luxury.
The economy is very deceptive as it has been pointed out. If you really looked at the way prices have increased over the last 3-5 years, you would immediately notice that salaries move along at a snail’s pace. I do most of the shopping for my family and I always notice how much prices increase over a relatively short amount of time, for smaller and smaller quantities of consumable product. Just to be able to feed your family on the basic essentials costs a significant amount of the family budget. And the average Joe is getting skewered at the local supermarket, the gas station, the bank, the doctor’s office, everywhere. So excuse me if I don’t jump for joy if the Dow Jones stays above 13,000.
Its all about prioritizing what you use the most, if you pay 30$ a month for internet, but you get that 30$ worth, then its all good. Maybe you cut out your cable bill since you can watch the shows you like over the internet instead of on cable. I know it would be very easy for me to live without cable television and just a basic 30$ a month DSL connection, which considering the household cable bill is around 50-60$ just for basic, would be much cheaper. I am all about CRT televisions since they last forever and the newer televisions do not last 10-20 years like CRT’s do. My family probably has the most pathetic television on the block, I am still excited about having a 20 inch CRT in my room however many people tell me that its just not good enough when it suits my needs just fine. We have a cell phone that costs 20-25$ a month depending on taxes and the family shares it equally, we never even use up all our minutes a month so there are no overages or excessive bills.
I am pretty desensitized to the wanting of video games simply because I own so many older consoles that I have no desire to buy anymore. I buy systems for 5-25$ from yard sales and games for around 10$ each and most of the time much less from various places. I have plenty of video games to play some which are just as good if not better as the so called next-gen consoles. I am not about to blow 400-600$ on a next gen console and 60$ a pop for games not counting accessories and online services when I can play games just the same for a fraction of the cost.
I also recycle everything I can by selling anything that is worth selling on ebay, so the computer pays for itself right there.
As others have pointed out basic essentials are going up and up in price while consumer spending on non-essentials such as video games, fancy TV’s, expensive cell phone plans, iphones and ipods is at an all time high, which only spells out the recipie for trouble!
@silverlining:
The slump at Home Despot is simple:
1. Nardelli dumped so many frontline employees that it became impossible to find someone to help you.
2. He had every store re-arranged, so you couldn’t find anything.
3. He wasted a couple of billion on buying Maintenance Warehouse & a couple of other companies, turning them into Home Depot Supply, losing a ton of money on this & HD Supply , as it’s now known, will be sold off this week, if they can find a sucker stupid enough to buy it.
4. Nardelli centralized all purchasing in Atlanta, even though there are major regional differences in product needs.
For fucking up a huge company, that shithead got $210 million and the job of destroying Chrysler!
@badgeman46: 16 a month for 3Mb dsl service. ~10 for prepaid cellphone service. Around 20 for landline. No cable or any other monthly fees (other than water/electricity/house payment).