Middle Class Evisceration

I am a child of the middle class and our family shopped at Sears and JC Penney and Kmart.

When I have said on these blogs and on our website  www.polestarcomm.com  that the middle class is dying, I just concluded these things not only from my own observations down here in Sarasota Florida but from our nation wide canvassing surveys that have been extremely accurate in all prior periods.

 

But here follows what is  - IMO - incontrovertible evidence of these things:  and the news from Radio Shack just this AM supports our conclusions.

Now, if you can’t extrapolate the impacts of these macro-economic shifts on your business, then you had better subscribe to our services: and I would suggest you do this now,  before the  proverbial SH-T starts Hitting the Fan, which will begin just ahead of when the 2^nd Wave of the Super Tsunami Kondratieff Long-Waves  breaks over your head!

http://beluscapitaladvisors.com/2013/10/21/sears-vanishing-minds-shocking-14-photos/

http://www.businessinsider.com/photos-inside-jcpenney-2014-1

http://www.businessinsider.com/photos-insider-kmart-2013-11

In my opinion, these stores are dying because the middle class is being gradually suffocated and will eventually be extinguished in this country.

The primary, yet totally unrecognized, reason is that the first of three Super Tsunami Kondratieff Long-Waves has wracked macro-economic chaos in the middle class life styles of Americans; and their spending habits to support those life styles will never be the same as those seen in the latter half of the 20^th Century!

And there are yet two more waves of the Super Tsunami Kondratieff Long-Waves to break over all the world’s economies in the not too distant future.  If you would like timing on these things then go to our Contact Page and sign up for our services, because I guarantee you that the Potato and Pumpkin Heads on you FV’s (Funny Visions) and all of the economic pundits will have no clue of these things!

The following synoptic observation is how I originally wrote about just one of the social phenomena that will accompany this dramatic series of alterations to the American Retail Landscape. 

I first wrote this in the midst of the Credit-Crisis in March of 2008, and then posted it to our website in October of 2011.  This is from our New Normal web page at www.polestarcomm.com and everything written herein still stands – IMO!

The "Age of Frugality"

Any company that ignores the emotional impact of this “New Normal” on the average US consumer or investor will likely see their market share progressively shrink and their corporate visibility diminish. 'Value' will become the consumer’s watchword, as they will no longer spend impulsively or carelessly giving birth to a totally new consumer class - 'Mission Shoppers.'  Shopping will become a 'Mission,' whereby a consumer will sally forth to purchase a specific product or service and not venture out aimlessly in a whimsical pursuit of things. 

The American consumer binge is NOW over and the 'Age of Frugality' has begun.  Sometime after the winter of 2012/13 will begin the collapse of all markets.  ...

 (These original projections of ours were extended over five times: we were forced to do so by the continual extension of the FED's ZIRP - by the Panicked Banking Authorities.  Therefore, we were forced to extend the projected timing of the ultimate Mother of All Crashes out to roughly the summer 2016!)

... After the "Great Deception of 2012" has been fully played out and ever more Trillions of dollars of investor capital has been 'smoked,' all businesses will have to cope with a consumer that will be totally focused on buying only what they need - when they need it.  Except for the super-rich (and there will be many fewer of them in the future), the days of just 'Shopping to Shop' are going to be replaced with 'Shopping to Survive.'  The mission of the new class of 'Mission Shoppers' will be to buy ONLY what they need and not what someone else thinks they should buy.  Therefore, only those companies that fulfill a need and not a desire will survive this new age.

After the bursting of the final 'Bubble' - The 'Bond Bubble' - investors will be finished with stocks and bonds and houses and will be totally intent on survival. In the coming economic debacle, other than inflation hedges and stores of value, investors will become too frightened to invest in anything.

In this now imminent fragile economic environment, consumer and investor behavior will respond best to those Marketing and Advertising 'messages' that recognize the “New Normal’ by offering solace, support and solutions to the exigencies of the day that promise to become much more severe than anyone now suspects possible.