The big “Black Friday” weekend went off mostly with a whimper. The only stampedes of shoppers were at places like Wal-Mart and other discount stores. While some folks did fight over choice popular merchandise, over all the mood was restrained. Wise choice.
This is the time to be buying necessities and durable goods. This will be a rather rough winter as more people lose their homes to foreclosures, but even worse as businesses are foreclosed. Any operation providing necessities will probably survive, but those who offer middling grade luxury goods will will likely shut down in the next few months. Also, any store which imports most of its necessities from the Asia-Pacific area may be forced to close, since there’s good reason to expect those sources of goods will dry up. That is, they would wisely stop taking the US dollar.
The powers that be have declared their intent to devalue the dollar on purpose, as if that were really news. This is simply a matter of coming clean. Indeed, about the only place where a brisk market can be expected is locally supplied necessities. Any grocer which can obtain food from local farmers and ranchers will do quite well. Any general merchandiser who can find a local manufacturer for things people want will do well. Any enterprising small production shop will quickly notice where demand is higher than supply, and start making stuff now imported. When local manufacturing re-enters the market for stuff now unanimously produced off-shore, we stand a chance of at least surviving.
We can be sure our current level of creature comfort will fade greatly. Folks will stop throwing out furniture and appliances they really need simply because the old one broke down. They’ll invest a lot more energy in repair. Look for the local repair shops to re-appear. Naturally the prices for these things will be much higher, since we’ve been essentially living off the backs of folks who would gladly work for less per day than most of us made in an hour. For obvious reasons, look for barter to return, since a lot of folks who can’t figure out how to create their own jobs will remain unemployed. Look for an awful lot of property crime, too.
You may know there was a bonanza for gun dealers. Not merely because the new president and his friends will likely move to make future sales nearly impossible, but because his term in office will surely see a huge increase in social unrest and violence. Decide for yourself whether you want to blame him, but he will preside over a very difficult time, and his political allies don’t include too many wiser heads. The statements these people have made in the past indicate they would rather destroy the country and kill millions than surrender their political dreams. Of course, we could say that for either of the two major candidates.
I think the bulk of shoppers sense things are not getting better, but worse. Keep your eye on the local buying trends, and don’t listen to the media hype.
