Redbook Same Store Sales Collapse

For the last week, the Redbook same store sales collapsed 4.4% on a year over year basis. This contrasts to the week prior that saw a rise of .1%.

The Redbook is a weekly measure of sales at chain stores, discounters, and department stores.

Here’s what Econoday says about the move:

Redbook reports a colossal plunge in same-store sales for the June 6 week, down 4.4 percent year-on-year and down 4.3 percent compared to the full month of May. The 4.4 percent plunge is not comparable to anything Redbook has been posting this cycle. And the magnitude of the week-to-week change in the year-on-year rate, to -4.4 percent vs. +0.1 percent in the May 30 week, is also unprecedented. The removal of Wal-Mart from Redbook’s sample may be behind the movement (Wal-Mart’s gone into hiding) as is no doubt year-on-year comparison problems with last year’s tax rebates. The latter factor, however, doesn’t explain the -4.3 percent comparison with the full month of May. The text is very mild, citing cooler weather for the decline as well as the stimulus checks. It will be interesting to see Redbook’s report next week. The Commerce Department will post May retail sales on Thursday in a report, which if surprising, that will move global markets in an instant.

LOL, like the term “colossal plunge!” That’s because a move like that is HISTORIC in nature.

The ICSC also made a large move in the downward direction with a -.8% showing. The ICSC measures same store sales at the large department stores.

Let’s see, could the fact that several of the major credit card companies are raising interest rates and capping lines of credit have anything to do with it? And what about a bond market collapse, could that have anything to do with that chain of events?

You bet! That’s exactly what happened during the Great Depression. Stocks fall because the overall credit bubble bursts… money flees to the “safety” of bonds and the dollar. Then the government steps in to “save the day.” But monetizing the debt and moving it onto the public balance sheet creates revulsion from the debt and interest rates rise because all the debt is still there and has now congregated largely in one place.

The banks don’t want to lend to debt saturated consumers and they shouldn’t. Of course they are saturated twice now, once with their own debt and secondly with government debt courtesy of the very banks who now are pulling lines of credit!

It’s a giant circle of interrelated parts. The sequence of events is very predictable, but our Government just can’t do the right thing. That’s because they are beholden to central banker and corporate money! We must create a system where corporate money does not influence politics. That’s the way it was supposed to work, from the beginning.