By Al Lewis
Why stuff a turkey when you can stuff a shopping cart full of
cheap, Chinese-made goods?
Several of America's struggling retailers are open on
Thanksgiving Day, including Best Buy, Dick's Sporting Goods, J.C.
Penney, Kmart, Kohl's, Macy's, Sears, Target, Toys 'R' Us and
Wal-Mart.
Many of these retailers have recently reported disappointing
financial results. All of them face what retail analysts predict
could be the worst holiday shopping season since 2009.
Target Chief Executive Gregg Steinhafel put the challenge
succinctly enough on Thursday as he reported a 47% decline in
third-quarter earnings: "Consumer spending remains
constrained."
Privately held retailers have grown sales at an annual rate of
less than 1% so far in 2013, the lowest since 2009, according to
market-research firm Sageworks. Smaller mom-and-pop retailers --
the ones the Big Boxes like to crush the most -- have suffered a 2%
contraction so far in 2013, Sageworks reports.
The solution for many mass merchants is to take what President
Lincoln declared as a national day of giving thanks and turn it
into a national day of grabbing foreign-made goods.
In doing so, they continue the cycle that has landed them
precisely where they are today. A recent report by the Economic
Policy Institute estimates that America's widening trade deficit
with China between 2001 and 2011 eliminated a net 2.7 million U.S.
jobs. The equation is simple: (more imports) = (fewer jobs) =
(fewer shoppers).
But the story is more complicated: "Even if trade were balanced,
U.S. workers would still lose, because we export low-wage products
to China (such as agricultural products) and import high-wage
products (such as computer and electronic products)," the report
noted.
Laura Lucas is a former Amazon executive who founded
footvote.com, a website that sells "Made in U.S.A." products. She
can't believe how people line up for deals on Black Friday/Thursday
-- or what I call "Thanksgrabbing."
"It astonishes me . . . how many men and women have sacrificed
to secure our freedom -- and then we as a society are not willing
to buy American-made products so that they have a strong economy to
come home to," she says.
Footvote is well-intended, but too few consumers actually vote
with their feet. Stores choosing to stay closed on Thanksgiving --
including Costco, Dillard's, Home Depot, Nordstrom and T.J. Maxx --
will get only fleeting thanks
Wal-Mart will get more business. It is perennially under fire
for doing what many other retailers do, only more efficiently. It
pays its employees "always low" wages, creating a growing class of
working poor. Yet America shops there anyway.
At a recent investors' conference, Wal-Mart U.S. CEO Bill Simon
tacitly admitted that as many as 525,000 of his full-time employees
earn less than $25,000 a year. You've likely heard the furor over a
news story out of Cleveland last week that reported on a Wal-Mart
store's canned-food drive "so associates could enjoy Thanksgiving
dinner."
Protests are mounting against Wal-Mart. Petitions are flying.
News reports are lamenting the thousands of people who must toil on
Thanksgiving Day. It's all very loud, but the Christmas music is
always louder.
Most shoppers will never stop to ask "What are we doing to the
economy?" They are more likely to ask "How 'bout that Funai 32-inch
HDTV on sale for $98?"
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Al Lewis is a columnist based in Denver. He blogs at
tellittoal.com; his email address is al.lewis@tellittoal.com