18
12/09
The Real Bad News about the Noreaster and Blizzard this Weekend: Retail Death Spiral Acceleration
by John Galt
December 18, 2009

Econ 101 boys and girls:
If you can’t get out of your driveway, you can’t go shopping. Thus with the LAST WEEKEND BEFORE CHRISTMAS, often the largest shopping period next to and sometimes exceeding the Black Friday time period, this is the disaster that the retailers of our fair land were hoping and praying would never happen.
Although we will have no hard numbers until after Christmas, the thoughts of this Noreaster plus another major winter storm forecast to hit the MidWest and same region on Christmas Eve may well indeed put the final nail in the coffin for numerous small retailers plus national ones depending on this holiday season to blow out the inventory they gambled on stocking and thus destroying the Commercial Real Estate markets as the defaults fall like dominoes in a hurricane. The stock markets, politicianspeak and cheerleading are irrelevant. It is all about the driveways and snow blowers now and let’s face it, most folks are just going to hang it up after this weekend if they are snowed in.
Stay tuned for more reality as I play the role of GRINCH aka Truth Teller for the Holiday Season.
Merry Grinchmas
John

