Im curious as to what the response will be from regulators when these loans start to mature. I'm assuming none of these companies are 'too big to fail', and will be allowed to fall apart. That's the big difference between 2008 and now I think. Will anyone want the assets of Macy's, Kohl's, etc. once commercial retail collapses? It's going to be a real disaster I think, and unfortunately the hardest hit will be the poorest Americans once again. Big winner? Amazon...
America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning
281–290 of 406 posts
Re: America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
The irony is that they were originally supposed to provide all of those things: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-gruen-effect/
Yeah, but it really feels like they have gotten away from the original vision. I remember when malls had arcades (ok, and outdated concept in itself) and regular community events. But it seems like these don't produce enough revenue, so malls have optimized themselves into a revenue model that removes their natural appeal as a third place. I think that malls could make a huge comeback with a focus on events that natu…
> (ok, and outdated concept in itself)
Is it really though? I miss the arcade machines of old. I wonder if anyone has tried bringing some of that concept back...
Re: America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
The irony is that they were originally supposed to provide all of those things: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-gruen-effect/
Yeah, but it really feels like they have gotten away from the original vision. I remember when malls had arcades (ok, and outdated concept in itself) and regular community events. But it seems like these don't produce enough revenue, so malls have optimized themselves into a revenue model that removes their natural appeal as a third place. I think that malls could make a huge comeback with a focus on events that natu…
> I think that malls could make a huge comeback with a focus on events that naturally draw people in and an emphasis on the kinds of high-touch products that people generally do prefer to buy in person.
Land prices in the cities where malls are developed have inflated past the carrying capacity of the prevailing disposable income in the same areas.
Re: America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
Completely agree that weather makes a huge difference to how much you enjoy strolling outdoors over being in a mall. My main complaint about malls is how _loud_ they are: visually and auditory-ly (someone please tell me what the right word is). Malls are crowded, adorned in bright, garish colors, filled with stale food court food smells. There is very little seating other than at food courts, water fountains are hidd…
RE: your grammar question: "Auditorily"
Ah of course. Thanks
Re: America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
Spend, spend, spend: shop till you drop mentality. If you think malls are only about consumerism then you've misunderstood a big part of their appeal for a lot of people. Young people and groups of friends don't go to the mall on their own. Malls merge consumerism with social activity - they're for people who enjoy shopping with their friends. If that's not you then fair enough, but don't disparage malls simply becau…
I'm not a sociologist, but my feeling is that malls are just a last resort place for young people to socialize that is unstructured and free of charge. That is: there isn't really anywhere else to go be with your friends without paying for the privilege, that isn't organized by adults (like school sports or church groups for instance). When I was growing up, we had the mall and we had parking lots, and the latter was…
As a person that just entered college and out of that time period, mall didnt do it for me because they are barren of things to do. There is nothing but things to buy and nothing of actual interest. I would rather go to a friends house and play games or watch a move at the theater than go to a mall because there is nothing there. The times when I went to a mall was because there was an arcade there that we would hang out at but that was the only point of interest. Other than that we would go elsewhere.
Re: America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
Durable goods would take that number way up from 200 for an average US family.
After I posted I had the same thought. But then I realized that durable goods from a store usually come in packaging, so measuring outgoing material isn’t as inaccurate as it sounds as first. Most of us are really pretty bad at tracking our purchases. We don’t want to look at them because it means admitting we have a problem. But we know the trash is full all the time and don’t think about how that correlated with co…
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Re: America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, to a degree, but these are different. And people that really care about clothes and/or furniture probably don't buy them sight unseen. For a lot of people, any good couch or shirt is probably good enough. But a guitar needs to be right for the individual. The difference between the right and wrong guitar can be significant, and is also something that will bother you every day.
Furniture is probably, next to a house and a car, among the most expensive things most people will purchase. And frankly I'm sure a lot of people just buy whatever guitar anyway, especially thinking back to the never-used one I used to have.
>> And frankly I'm sure a lot of people just buy whatever guitar anyway, especially thinking back to the never-used one I used to have
Surely you recognize that your mindset while purchasing that guitar was different than that of a serious musician investing a substantial sum in an instrument they'll play for thousands of hours.
Re: America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning
#288Malls hold no interest for me whatsoever. There's nothing there worthwhile, other than employment. Malls have nothing: no libraries, no Good Cafes, no places to hang out, no parks, no museums, no zoos, limited live music, no outdoors. And the few things it does have: like some book stores and places to eat, are all engineered to get you in and out and back to the Mall's singular focus: Spend, spend, spend: shop till…
I'm not going to defend malls, but clearly there needs to be some kind of market place where people can encounter things they don't expect. We are already experiencing a media landscape with a filter bubble. Views become more narrow and extreme. You are going to need to have a place where you see things you think you wouldn't buy or want, otherwise your experience of world is going to get more narrow.
Amazon is extremely good at that, and they have a strong financial motivation to do so.
I'll agree with and extend your remarks on a tangent that at one point in human history literacy was nice but not required to participate in the economy. Currently shopping by catalog and spec and datasheet is for the cognitive elite like engineers, but soon enough its going to be a required new higher minimum of economic participation. You'll pick out your next bicycle by reading technical manuals and holding a ruler up to your leg, or you'll fail miserably at buying a bicycle. Just like its sad that illiterate or innumerate people get screwed in todays economy, people who can't shop like an engineer are going to get screwed in coming decades. What you're looking at is evolution of the economy to increase income inequality as it always does and increase specialization as it always does and require more work out of people as it always does. There's nothing really new about it, its just people who can't shop like an engineer are just not going to be able to shop anymore, at least not successfully, just like someone illiterate has a rough time shopping today.
Re: America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not disagreeing completely, but your location might be influencing your answer. I live in the northern portion of the USA, we get freezing winters and blistering summers. Come mid-winter...I am not going downtown to walk around outside, we don't hang out outside (unless we are talking winter sports, and then FULLY clothed). In summer, there needs to be shade. Fall and spring, we get wet. But really, it seems like…
North Americans are too soft. I live in Toronto and it's wonderful to have nice streets that you can walk and bike on, even at ±30C.
I thought Toronto was part of North America...
Also, doesn't Montreal have the Underground City specifically for staying out of the cold in the winter?
Re: America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
But if you read the article it describes a lot of businesses which are profitable and could plod along, except they're saddled with tons of debt from leveraged buyouts.
That struck me as bogus. In other words, they're saying the businesses aren't profitable enough to service debt loads that were thought to be sustainable debt loads a few years ago. That still points to lower than expected retail profit. Interest rates have been unusually low for more than a decade, so it's not like a credit spike changed the assumptions.
It calls out some of this debt being from 2007, and some cursory checking on my part suggests things were picking up again to a notable degree more recently. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-uslbo/cheap-financing-fuel...
Anyway, at best it contributes to a negative feedback loop.