So I was watching the evening local news tonight, the topic was

holiday shopping and who was doing well and who was not.

It seems the stores that sell luxury items and cater to wealthy Americans such as Neiman Marcus (among others) are breaking records for sales. On the other hand large national chains stores like, Walmart, Penney's, and K-Mart are all falling below sales expectations by as much as 10% from last year.

What does this tell you?

It tells me that the rich are doing quite well and everyone else is doing less than quite well. What do you think is the ratio of consumers are who shop at Neiman's versus Walmart, K-mart and Penney's? And what does that say for how the average American is fairing in the Bush economy?

It seems the Bush tax cut has really helped the sales of furs and crystal, important base consumer goods. I can understand that the lower and middle incomes earners are more concerned with heating their homes this winter and fueling their cars both are costing them about 30% more than last year. Hummmm do you think the war has had any impact on the cost of oil?

Gee! What do you think does the current administration and their policies have something to do with the seasonal shopping trend?

people can't afford WalMart. I see a lot of people in the local Family Dollar.
It says a lot more when one considers that there are more people in the bottom half of the spectrum than there are in the top half.

Christmas isn't all about 'stuff'???

I think perhaps it's the economy. After all the population grows year after year. Spend, spend, spend, credit will keep you in stuff even thought you don't have the cash, pay later. Kinda like our kids will pay for the growing deficit

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and will not be using the gas log in the fireplace because of increased energy costs from the two things.

Things are tight enough that doing that would take that much more from our grocery budget. So we don't.

Target is a Repub store, I do not shop there or any other Repub store, like Kmart, Walmart, etc. Only shop Costco now, Demo store.

this inspires me!

to think that the higher end chain stores are doing more business then the lower end chains.

...I've noticed that the "better" department stores--Kaufmans and Lazarus--are having extraordinary sales. The prices are so good that often their sale price on a good brand is better than the regular price of the cheap stuff at the discount stores. I've never seen this level of discounting.