18
Nov
As Shopping Season Approaches, Warnings of “SEVERE RECESSION”
A Happy Thanksgiving to one and all, but watch carefully and see if we get a repeat performance this year as in years past of the specious reporting on the day after Thanksgiving. For some reason, that day is called “BLACK FRIDAY.” (Wasn’t that also what they called the day the Stock Market crashed in 1929?)
Friday is traditionally the “biggest shopping day of the year,” the start of the Christmas/holiday shopping season (although many big stores are trying to jump the date this year by opening on the holiday or staging all night sales beginning at 12:01 AM.) For decades, we’ve over-consumed at the dinner table and then gone out and shopped until we dropped. And we are about to do it again—at those of us who can afford to.
And as we do, despite all the economic problems I will tell you about, the local TV news stations are likely to recycle their annual coverage routine.
They show up at the biggest mall (where many of their advertisers hope to pack in the shoppers) and “go live” to show how crowded the parking lot is and how the Christmas giving spirit is upon us. (Hint, hint!) The impression: the economy is booming, and all is festive with cash registers ringing and products moving off the shelves. That’s the news they want us to see because it hypes more consumption. Last year they showed fights in the aisles for the latest gadgets as cattle-like herds of consumers charge for gifts and goodies and then charge them on their cards.
What they don’t report is what happens next: the annual VISA sales report AFTER Christmas which has steadily shown that the results are “disappointing,” or a week later, the returns in January after we get our credit card bills and find we can’t afford to keep the loot. In other words, the frame of the story is deceptive and wrong.
For weeks, the Stop the Squeeze newsletter has been echoing warning that many of our leaders have been in denial about. The Democrats who “debated” last week in Las Vegas did not even mention this coming disaster as if there have been no predictions that our debt load and financial crisis are leading to a recession and worse. Those warnings have been ignored almost like that Presidential Briefing Memo of August 6 2001 that forecast an imminent terrorist attack.
Now, an economic 9/11 is on the horizon. Only this time, it will not be for a day, but possibly for weeks, months, even years. This will be the attack that keeps on attacking.
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SQUEEZED–NEW BOOK FROM STOPTHESQUEEZE.ORG
News Dissector Danny Schechter’s new book on this crisis is called SQUEEZED and deals with The Financial Tsunami, The Crimes of Wall Street and In Debt We Trust. We will send you this 182 page E-book for free for tax-deductible a donation of $25.00 or more to support this website and the In Debt We Trust Educational outreach campaign.
Send your email and a check made out to the Financial Awareness Education Project at The Global Center, 575 8th Avenue, #2200, New York, New York 10018
Give The Gift Of Awareness In This Holiday Season. No Credit Cards.
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WARNINGS, WARNINGS, WARNINGS
Last week, the overlords of OPEC met in Saudia Arabia where many expressed fears about the dangers of a recession that their high oil prices are contributing too. The latest warning from on high came just last weekend from the Goldman Sachs, the world’s most powerful investment bank. The Telegraph in London reported:
Goldman Sachs has sent a shudder through the debt markets, warning that sub-prime mortgage losses could force banks to slash lending by $2,000bn (£980bn) and push the United States into a deep recession.
Jan Hatzius, US chief economist for the Wall Street bank, said potential losses of $400bn from the whole debacle did not begin to capture the scale of any squeeze on bank lending.”
This forecast mirrors an earlier warning by The National Association for Business Economics which asserted months ago: “The combined threat of subprime loan defaults and excessive indebtedness has supplanted terrorism and the Middle East as the biggest short-term threat to the U.S. economy.”
