Further proving that the U. S. economy is tanking, Virginia Beach based Lilian Vernon and The Sharper Image have filed bankruptcy this week. More significantly, analysts expect many other retailers to follow suit with associated job loses, which in turn creates an ever widening ripple effect. Meanwhile, the housing market remains in a free fall in many areas. Yet the GOP focuses on troops in Iraq for 100 years instead of noticing what's happening at home. Yesterday on MSNBC, Mort Zuckerman, editor in chief of U. S. News and World Reports commented that we are headed for the worse economy in over 40 years. Here are some highlights from the Houston Chronicle (.http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/biz/5557037.html):
NEW YORK — A weak holiday season and a struggling economy led retailers Sharper Image Corp. and Lillian Vernon Corp. to file for bankruptcy this week, and analysts predict others could soon follow them as consumer spending worsens. "You'll see a record number of bankruptcies over the next 50, 100 and 1,000 days," said Burt Flickinger III, managing director of the New York-based retail consulting firm Strategic Resource Group. "Consumers are cash and credit constrained. They're out of purchasing power."
Flickinger said the problem is partly food and fuel inflation. While consumers used to pay 10 cents of every dollar for food and fuel, they now pay up to 20 cents per dollar. "Companies are contracting and collapsing," he said. "You'll see it in food and drug, discount and department stores as well as specialty stores and dollar stores. Every major form of retailing."
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