Stores that are planning to close after Christmas are still selling gift cards through the holidays (even though the cards will be worthless after they close).

There is no law preventing them from doing this. On the contrary, it is referred to as “Bankruptcy Planning”.

Below is a partial list of stores that you need to be cautious about.

• Circuit City (filed Chapter 11)
• Ann Taylor 117 stores nationwide closing
• Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug ,and Catherine’s to close 150 stores nationwide
• Eddie Bauer to close stores 27 stores and more after January
• Cache will close all stores
• Talbots closing down specialty stores
• J. Jill closing all stores (owned by Talbots) Pacific Sunwear (also owned by Talbots)
• GAP closing 85 stores
• Footlocker closing 140 stores more to close after January
• Wickes Furniture closing down
• Levitz closing down remaining stores
• Bombay closing remaining stores
• Zales closing down 82 stores and 105 after January
• Whitehall closing all stores
• Piercing Pagoda closing all stores
• Disney closing 98 stores and will close more after January.
• Home Depot closing 15 stores
• Macys to close 9 stores after January
• Linens and Things closing all stores
• Movie Galley Closing all stores
• Pep Boys Closing 33 stores
• JC Penney closing a number of stores after January
• Ethan Allen closing down 12 stores.
• Wilson Leather closing down all stores
• Sharper Image closing down all stores
• K B Toys closing 356 stores
• Loews to close down some stores
• Dillard’s to close some stores

I can’t put my finger on it but I just have this feeling that this whole bailout thing is simply a poorly conceived and executed plan to provide political cover for our so-called leaders. And to especially help Bush leave office in less disgrace than he will already.

Is there a true economic crisis? Especially of the magnitude that’s been reported. The economy’s been in trouble for quite a while already. Here’s an excerpt of a minnpost.com report from a panel of economists at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute for Public Affairs Tuesday night:

The Bush administration has acted in this crisis the same as it has acted for the last eight years, Chari said. “The consistent message is: We’re grown-ups. We understand the real problems. You don’t. We need to go into Iraq. We need to spend $720 billion. Because we have the information that you don’t.”

The publicly available data don’t support the need for the type of bailout bill pushed by the president, Chari said, and if the administration has more telling data, it should be disclosed. Without seeing what they’re seeing, the bailout appears to be “remarkably unwise,” he said.

“They’re not telling us what we’re not seeing that they are seeing,” Chari said. “There is this nagging fear maybe they’re reacting to weird things in their heads.”

Stinson acknowledge the problem that many people believe they are being misled, but said he believes the threat to the economy is credible.

“This isn’t Mr. [Ahmed] Chalabi reporting visions of mobile bio weapons labs running around the streets of Baghdad,” Stinson said of a key figure in the run-up to the Iraq war in gathering information that turned out to be false.

Instead of a grainy satellite image in a Colin Powell slide show, what economists are seeing is a widening gap in the rate banks are charging each other compared to what the Federal Reserve charges.

Something’s fishy about this “bailout”. Time will tell whether the administraton’s response was warrented or whether it was just a “let’s cover our ass” move. People don’t trust the Bush administration’s version of the “crisis”. Well, I have no idea why that would occur?

I don’t know how to put this without sounding all queer but sometimes Ken Layne channels Hunter S. Thompson and brings a truth and beauty to modern life. As you all know Republicans defeated the Soviet Union. Well, it seems like history is repeating itself. Today the US is the Soviet Union and the Republicans are defeating us. Here’s Mr. Layne to explain:

Your editor was standing in the bowels of LAX a few weeks ago,waiting for the antiquated baggage conveyor to deliver whatever was left of his war suitcase, when he had the overwhelming feeling of being stuck in some early ’90s Eastern Bloc rundown government facility, maybe a train station in the Ukraine or a “department store” in Serbia. Everything was dirty and broken, dull people stood in dull clumps, afraid to talk or bitch too much as there were heavily armed cops everywhere, as always. The fluorescent lights blinked and buzzed sickly in the windowless chamber, there wasn’t even muzak or a Starbucks around.

It’s what America looks like, increasingly. The roads are potholed, the bridges collapsing, metro trains crash and kill as dull-eyed engineers peck text messages, airlines have become Aeroflot, dams and levees busting apart, yearlong waits to get a passport, maimed soldiers sent back to the endless war again and again, and a book-banning big-government cipher from Siberia is briefly popular for being a nasty moron.

Even in recent weeks right-wing-nuts were wailing about how Barack Obama was going to turn our country into some sort of communist workers paradise. Please speak the truth to these morons Mr. Layne:

Turns out we didn’t need “stealth socialist” Barack Obama to pervert capitalist America into a crumbling nationalized economy run in private by a dome-skulled kleptocracy as our nation’s battered military wastes away in the forgotten bummer of a civil war in Afghanistan. WAIT A MINUTE that is exactly what happened in the Soviet Union! And the so-called Republicans did it, because they are Fiscal Socialists!

Some robot on one of the Sunday talk shows were talking about how the next president would have to clean up this mess. How naive. How about the next three generations? One more nugget of truth about the futility of the so-called “government action”.  Mr. Layne, please?:

America just sold another half-trillion dollars of itself to China, all to keep the markets flat for a week in September.

Starbucks is closing 600 stores and one of them is in the neighborhood where I work.  Honestly,  all the Starbucks coffee I ever had was bitter. I did like the Frappuccinos. I remember a couple of years ago Starbucks boasting about their market domination. They claimed that having a store every 600 feet was part of a smart business strategy.  The following is from the November 2006 edition of the New York Post:

Starbucks, the $6.4 billion java joint, is opening its second store inside Macy’s Herald Square tomorrow, grabbing the key real estate on the mezzanine overlooking the first floor for a 65-seat location.

It’s the first time the king of caffeine has opened up two stores under the same retailer’s roof. But just like its street-side stores, it’s all about the location.

“While you may think there is a Starbucks on every corner, get over it, because there’s now going to be two Starbucks on many corners,” said Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst for market research firm NPD Group.

I got a 20oz. coffee this morning at 7-Eleven. $1.70.

How many times do Republicans have to try supply-side economics and fail before they figure out it doesn’t work?

I have a theory. If our government would lower taxes for the middle class, they would start spending money and the economy would rise out of it’s funk. I’ve heard over and over about how the spending of the middle class keeps the economy afloat and growing. For sure the mortgage crisis and high fuel prices are dragging down the economy but imagine how much better it would be if people had some money to spend. And I don’t mean this measly $600 dollars the government is giving out.

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Introduction
New figures came out last week that put unemployment at its highest level since Mike and the Mechanics were topping the Billboard charts. As the labor market deteriorates and thousands more find themselves out of work, you may ask yourself: “How can I protect myself from those insufferable articles that preach the “6-steps to surviving unemployment.” (more…)