Tag: Walmart

CUE THE VIOLINS

Submitted by Hardscrabble Farmer

Zerohedge

By Mark Solomon of FreightWaves

There’s little in retailing that Walmart and Target aren’t prepared to handle. So it was jarring that over a 24-hour period the two scions of the trade posted weak first-quarter profits that appeared to blindside management at both.

Part of the bottom-line blowup was due to fuel, which soared to record highs following Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. Part of it was due to margin pressures caused by an unfavorable sales mix as consumers shifted their buying from higher-margin goods like electronics to less profitable items like groceries. An extension of that was an overshoot of inventory-stocking activity, which came back to bite the retailers after waning concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic pushed more consumer buying toward services and “experiences” and away from goods. Continue reading “CUE THE VIOLINS”

Chinese Communist Spies Found In Arkanas

Via Intrepid Research

A few years ago, the FX Network had a popular television series called The Americans. A period spy drama set in the Cold War 1980s, it portrayed a couple who moved to the United States to assimilate, live and work as Americans, but were secretly officers in the KGB.

Meet Ka Zeng and Fei Zhang. She (Ka) is a professor of political science at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He (Fei) is a Senior Director at the corporate headquarters of J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc., one of the largest trucking and logistics companies in the United States. They have lived in Northwest Arkansas for over 20 years.

Continue reading “Chinese Communist Spies Found In Arkanas”

The Coronavirus Encounters of an Average American Nobody

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

Last week, I read an online article in my local paper telling of a 68-year-old gentleman who died from COVID-19. In the article, it described how the man had retired in the last year because of cancer. Then, two days later, my wife asked me if I had read the article.  When I said that I had, she responded:  “Scary, huh? He was healthy.”

I replied:  “What do you mean? He had underlying issues“.

And when we logged-on to read the article again, it was tagged as “updated 7 hours ago” and many of the words I’d read two nights before were…. gone. In the paragraph where it said he retired, it mentioned nothing of his cancer and instead described how the man was “active and enjoyed riding his bike”.

Of course, even a tin-foil-hat-wearing blogger like me would have a hard time believing that any conspiratorial pressure could be applied to my local paper.  Perhaps the family requested the change or the original article was in error. It’s hard to say.

Continue reading “The Coronavirus Encounters of an Average American Nobody”

Where were 2019 Holiday sales so great exactly?

We do not think the “sales reports” about Black Friday and other 2019 holiday sales figures are at all accurate. In general, it is our belief that “spending” as a whole this Christmas season is DOWN.

Each year, season, or whatever period of time – news outlets, media publications, and other propaganda-spewing entities “report” the state of the economy or retail industries. They say “up” or “down” depending on what will benefit them the most. Much of these so-called reports, we believe, are utter fabrications (for whatever reason).

As you will surely remember many examples of “fraud” over the years. Accounting fraud. News fraud. Economic fraud. People, in general, have no problem lying, if it benefits them or those who pay them. We live in a fraudulent society across the board now.

So a properly cynical person will take nearly all “mainstream” news – and almost automatically assume it is something different than what it portrays. “Cui Bono?”

Continue reading “Where were 2019 Holiday sales so great exactly?”