Holiday shopping is down, mall blight is up
from Grist:
Holiday shopping is down, mall blight is up
By Susie Cagle
It seems a lot of Americans shifted the gift this holiday season. Early reports from retailers indicate this may well be the least shop-happy winter since the apocalyptic recession Christmas of 2008. And climate change sure isn’t helping.
Reuters reports:
Shares of retailers dropped sharply on Wednesday, helping drag broader indexes lower, as investors realized they were likely to be disappointed when companies start to report results in a few weeks’ time.
“The broad brush was Christmas wasn’t all that merry for retailers, and you have to ask what those margins look like if the top line didn’t meet their expectations,” said Kim Forrest, senior equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group.
Growth was always expected to slow this season, though an improving employment picture and rising home values had helped mitigate the worst fears. But then Superstorm Sandy hit the East Coast in late October, mild weather blunted sales of winter clothing and rising concern about the “fiscal cliff” became more of a reality, dragging down already-pessimistic forecasts.
(T-minus how long until someone rebrands swimsuits as a great climate collapse fashion choice?)
Stores stand to scoop up nearly a third of their annual sales over the holiday season, so this drop could be significant — but could it be enough to push us closer to a more lasting shifting of the gifts?
Sales may be down on the whole, but they’re also moving from the brick and mortar world to the digital, leaving us with empty, useless retail spaces and dead, blighted malls from coast to coast. According to Atlantic Cities, shopping mall vacancy rates are now hovering around twice what they were 10 years ago. The head of a leading commercial real estate firm said of these ghost malls, “I don’t think we’re overbuilt, I think we’re under-demolished.” .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://grist.org/news/holiday-shopping-is-down-mall-blight-is-up/
= new reply since forum marked as read
and 15 of their 31 resident cats found new homes in a single day.
I lost my shelter kitty, Pollyanna, to age and liver disease on Christmas Day.
The day after, I headed to the shelter to donate her remaining cat food. There at 2pm, I found a jammed parking lot. Inside, I found the staff ecstatic that since they'd opened at 11 that morning, they'd found homes for 12 kitties.
I left with gratitude for the food and compliments that Polly, who'd come to me after a year at the shelter as the most unwanted kitty due to her plain face, angry wail and liver disease, had lived 7 years of nonstop purring, despite her illness. Oh, I also left with kitty #13 in the carrier I had brought along 'just in case.' 
And while we were rounding up kitty #13, who was the current most unwanted kitty, just shy of a full year at the shelter (despite her beautiful pure gold eyes and dilute calico coat) due to her diffident and aloof nature, a small family was looking for kitty #14 (an always hard to adopt black kitty).
As I stepped out the door, a lovely young woman was walking up the stairs carrying a carrier. I asked if she was coming to adopt a kitty. She positively beamed, "Yes!" 
In other adoption holiday news, the young woman who sits across from me at my new job brought home a homeless, family-less 16 year old boy to live with her. He was about to be thrown out of the shelter on Christmas Eve. Instead, last weekend they discussed him possibly staying with her. She advised him there would be rules and consequences if he broke them. And found herself reassuring him that no, he would not be sent back to the shelter for breaking rules. 
He asked if he stayed with her if he could call her "mom."
It seems that at least some people have figured out that the gift of love is worth far, far more than all the cheap, slave-made, plastic junk in the world. 
