03-06-2020, 12:36 PM
In the retail business, "debt" differs from either "dead" or "death" only in the sound of the final consonant.
Furniture is usually something that people can put off buying. Much of it is bought on credit, as are many other big-ticket items (cars, appliances). Facing the wrong market (heavily Michigan, which has been "Michigrim" for retailers), a likely credit crunch due to the inverted market curve, and a loss of confidence of the vulture capitalists who bought Art Van... maybe this isn't so surprising as it seemed.
The stock market is down 10.1% from the start of the year, and 12.25% off the all-time high at the moment at which I write this. The wealth effect that Donald Trump has ridden to date may be vanishing, and with that his sole remaining source of credibility among voters.
So --
1. a company heavily in debt
2. a company overexposed in a bad regional market (Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio -- yuck!) as a retailer
3. a company whose sales depend upon the perception of individual prosperity
4. an inverted yield curve that practically ensures a credit crunch
5. an inverted yield curve that makes quick corporate borrowing difficult
Furniture is usually something that people can put off buying. Much of it is bought on credit, as are many other big-ticket items (cars, appliances). Facing the wrong market (heavily Michigan, which has been "Michigrim" for retailers), a likely credit crunch due to the inverted market curve, and a loss of confidence of the vulture capitalists who bought Art Van... maybe this isn't so surprising as it seemed.
The stock market is down 10.1% from the start of the year, and 12.25% off the all-time high at the moment at which I write this. The wealth effect that Donald Trump has ridden to date may be vanishing, and with that his sole remaining source of credibility among voters.
So --
1. a company heavily in debt
2. a company overexposed in a bad regional market (Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio -- yuck!) as a retailer
3. a company whose sales depend upon the perception of individual prosperity
4. an inverted yield curve that practically ensures a credit crunch
5. an inverted yield curve that makes quick corporate borrowing difficult
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.