11.16.10
Tuesday Morning Bits
On being pathetic: Scurry around rationalizing how to make tax cuts permanent for the wealthy, the only ones who did well during the last year.
Sneak them in on the two year thing under the buzz-term compromise, which actually means collapsing before your sworn enemy. From the LA Times political page:
“I’d love to see a longer extension, but I think two years gets us to where we need to go and then we can focus on these other issues coming forward,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.).
A U.S. Chamber of Commerce letter Monday urged a “preferably permanent” extension, apparently leaving the door open to something less.
The president has invited House and Senate leaders to the White House on Thursday for a meeting at which the tax cut issue is expected to dominate the discussion.
“The president’s priority is providing permanent middle-class tax relief, and he is willing to compromise to get that done,” said Jen Psaki, a White House spokeswoman. “But he has been clear that we cannot afford to make the high-income tax cuts permanent.”
The New York Times reports Wal-Mart’s business is off in the US.
This explains why the company so wants to go to India to open stores.
In the United States, where Wal-Mart stores open at least a year saw a 1.3 percent drop in revenue, a measure known as same-store sales, executives said they were continuing with changes like increasing the number of items for sale, adding in more $1-and-under products and underselling competitors.
Still, visits to Wal-Mart’s American stores declined from a year ago, as did the average price paid at checkout, Wal-Mart executives said.
“They’re focused on necessities and being practical with how they spend their money,??? the company’s chief financial officer, Thomas M. Schoewe, said in a call with reporters. “We still see what we call the paycheck cycle, where you see the spikes in comps the day or two after a payroll check,??? or from food-stamp programs, he said. “It’s every bit as pronounced as we’ve seen it.???
The nasty truth, unmentioned, is that Wal-Mart’s business model has a lot to do with why their customers now only buy necessities and use food stamps.
Selling only Chinese-made goods, so that everyone could be undercut, Wal-Mart contributed in a major way to the destruction of industry that makes stuff in the US. And when all the credit ran out and the economy went bust for its heartland customers, this is what they have.
And no amount of feel good commercials built around a few select workers praising their Wal-Mart careers on network TV will bring it back. They helped break it. Now we can count on Wal-Mart, whose owners are always in the list of Forbes’ richest Americans, to dry and do it somewhere else.