@Meteor Man
about getting banned on GOS for the crime of posting here?

A quick add on from a few weeks ago over at Wolf Street:

The Debt Slaves are beginning to buckle under their loads.

Consumer and business bankruptcies are rising again, after declining for years since the Financial Crisis. That’s not a propitious sign.

Bottom line:

Delinquencies on credit cards, according to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, have been ticking up from the lows of the first half in 2015. Auto loan delinquencies have been rising too, and in the subprime segment, they have been surging. Student loan delinquencies have been very high and have been underreported for years, it now turns out.

So when will the first waves of consumers stumble in their debt binge and head for bankruptcy court to seek protection from creditors? That’s what everyone wanted to know. And now the answers are beginning to emerge.

http://wolfstreet.com/2017/06/06/bankruptcies-consumers-businesses-rise-...

@snoopydawg
Hi-end luxury accommodation in the wealthy cities is booming.

Developing nations are experiencing growth in consumer spending. In many countries such as China, malls and high-end stores are doing very well with 8-12% yearly growth. The average salary in China will rise 7% (after inflation - real rise 4.7%) in 2017.

China's consumer-led growth market is going to be exported with the Belt and Road Initiative from Asia to Europe and Africa. This area contains 2/3's of the world's population and is ripe for massive growth. China has discovered the key factor is spending in infrastructure - roads, rail-lines, airports and ports - to enable the movement of people and goods.

It was less than a decade ago that many Americans were laughing at Chinese spending in their infrastructure - all those unused apartments, empty highways and massively expensive rail-lines and airports they said the Chinese would never be able to afford to use. Well, surprise! They rapidly filled up and more is now required to be built.

China’s infrastructure spending is a boon to consumer businesses, says Yum China CEO

Yum China: "We built over 130 restaurants in two months"
Sunday, 16 Apr 2017 | 8:31 PM ET | 06:49

Rising consumer spending in China has boosted sales of retailers, but it is the country's infrastructure spending that gives businesses opportunities to expand, said the chief executive of China's largest publicly held restaurant operator.

Micky Pant, chief executive of Yum China, told CNBC's "Squawk Box" Monday that infrastructure is a reason why the company — which operates brands such as KFC and Pizza Hut — is aiming to open 600 new stores this year.

"For us, what's very important is infrastructure spending because that's how we get new malls, new trade zones, new high speed rail stations, new airports and that's continuing at the fastest rate in China compared to any other country in the world. That's how we build 600 restaurants a year because these opportunities are emerging," he said.
...
Pant said China's economic transition into a consumer-led growth model, and the government's continued reforms, will boost the company's prospects in the years to come.

He singled out the country's tax system overhaul in May last year, which replaced a revenue-based tax with a levy on the business' value-add, such as the difference between wholesale and final sales prices. The move will help stabilize China's economic growth and help the country's rebalancing efforts, China's finance ministry said when the shift was announced last year.
...

Meanwhile, infrastructure in the US is steadily decaying. It will cost at least what is spent by the defense industry to even begin to rectify this problem. America has to make a decision fairly quickly. Will the country continue to spend it's treasure on filling coffins or will it finally come to it's senses and start to fill coffers like the Chinese?

such as Sears, Radio Shack, Payless and other big brand named stores. These stores have been around for decades and the biggest named stores have been bookends for all the malls and full of shoppers.
Now all over America have been closing since the 2008 debacle and cities are wondering what to do with the empty buildings.

If the republicans are able to repeal the ACA and phase out Medicaid , the number of jobs lost is going to hit every industry that is connected to the health care industry. Just one example is janitors who clean hospitals, pharmacies, doctor's offices, medical supply companies and a lot of other companies that are related to health care. Then add in the other careers and jobs and staff and we are talking about hundreds of thousands of people who will lose their jobs.

After that happens, look at places like car lots and the jobs connected to them will also be affected because people won't have money to buy cars. You can keep adding in more and more industries going out to infinity.

Oh well, at least rich people will receive a tax cut. But what can they spend money on if there aren't any places left that sells things that they need?

@snoopydawg  
In the early 1950s Sears had a building between Beretania and King Streets. I liked it when my mom took me there because it had air conditioning and was the only place in the whole city with escalators.

When Ala Moana Center was built, Sears moved there as the anchor department store. The city took over the old building and turned it into police headquarters.

Sears — along with Liberty House, originally a German clothier, expropriated and renamed during World War I — were our family’s idea of upscale. But then, the childhood Hawaii I remember, before statehood and mass jet travel and satellite communication, was, if not quite Third World, not fully First World either. Sort of Sesqui World (“sesqui-” = 1½).

Magazines mailed from North America arrived months late. Christmas TV shows aired in February because that’s how long it took to edit together a film version and ship the reels from the East Coast across the continent and then across the ocean.

Sears stores have rats and broken toilets

One store had a broken toilet for 3 weeks. Sears told their employees that they need to clock out and drive to a gas station or a mall.
How nice of them. In order to use a toilet, employees are told to work less hours and use their gas.
Probably in some parts of the country, these jobs are the only ones available.,

@eyo before I had to return to the Midwest for family reasons, I was on a Sonoma County public/private group that tried to figure out how to help get living places for homeless encamped along the creeks. I was impressed by the seriousness of the participants, and there were some good plans that we enacted. There were victories, and we helped some get living space, more get serviced and we got a lot of people into some medical evaluation and treatment.

The crux of the problem was the stark lack of shelters and other accommodations. We had a surveyed population that needed housing that was thousands more than the available number of beds.

One of the proposed "solutions " was to kick the higher functioning out of their housing since they would be more likely to find a solution on their own. There was a great pushback to that, but I had to leave and haven't been home for a couple of years so I don't know how it ended up. @eyo

This is not just a "citywide trend" in Sacramento, unfortunately.
Surge of cops headed to Oak Park. Will there be enough for your neighborhood?

The Sacramento Police Department is deploying more than 30 additional officers to Oak Park this Fourth of July weekend after a spate of violence spurred City Hall to demand more enforcement in the neighborhood.

Violent crime is up slightly in Oak Park this year, mirroring a citywide trend. There have been four homicides there this year, including the shooting death of a 19-year-old man on Wednesday night. Last weekend, a pregnant woman was shot less than a half-mile from Wednesday’s homicide; her labor was induced and both she and her baby are expected to survive.

Police Department spokesman Sgt. Bryce Heinlein said it does not appear those shootings – or two separate homicides in recent weeks – are related.
...

Unrelated to reality, that guy is. It's the economy stupid! Meanwhile, up near where I live : Santa Rosa prepares to clear out Homeless Hill. Again! Yet another "program" for the professional class.

... Edwards said she was skeptical but would give the new program a try. But only if her family members could come with her. And her boyfriend. And her pit bull.

Duh, but nobody listens. Just make another program with more rules telling people they are not worth keeping family together. Not worth it. Then what happens? Windsor man dies after apparently setting himself afire in car . Don't search the phrase "man lights self on fire" omg I had no idea it is all over the place.

California government will spend more than ever before under the new budget, and still have the most people without housing, the most people underpaid and over worked, go Jerry. "That's the system". Make enough "high earners" to tax, all others scrape for whatever crumbs get "mitigated" to trickle down. As the world burns.

Watch China because everything the US assholes did here they exported over there and repeated. Now, when their middle-class bubble pops, California is gonna feel it bad, that's what I think. I guess everybody will. Cheap crap and cancer for the win.

P.S. Add salesforce.com to the list of monstrosities marring the San Francisco skyline. TransAtlantic Pyramid, the Bank of America building (always remembered as black heart of the city), and now the latest permitted architectural mucilage mucus called the salesforce building, or something like that. Homage to empty suits, mass marketing leeches. Unbelievable. Renting a "sales" product? lol priceless

Edited: because mucilage is a good thing, not what I meant.

@MinuteMan
They have bigger herds of Genuine US Certified Black Angus Beef cattle than America.

If the worst happens economically, at least we'll have someone in the White House with loads of experience dealing with real world fiscal setbacks!