[emeraldg40]

No changes here in North Texas that I can tell. Heads in the sand, heads in the sand...............even at home

[hope_full]

Well this is quite odd, but went looking for gas yesterday and found three gas stations with those ominous red bags on the pump handles. Wonder if the "rolling brownouts" on gas supply have come to Norfolk, VA??

Secondly, my uber-conservative friend called yesterday and said, "Hope, I'm thinking you're right about the economy. I went looking for double-aught buckshot for my shotgun and I couldn't find any locally. All the local stores are SOLD OUT. Had to buy it online."

My friend says that .00 is used primarily for personal protection ammo in shotguns. He's now stocking up on guns and ammo.

HF

[Arsenal]

Massachusetts governor stated that they are cutting the budget for some services. Police, fire, EMS, permits, etc are now either going to take longer or there are going to be layoffs. Funny... Times are getting worse and they are cutting police and fire jobs??? Seems opposite of what will happen with crimes. Oh well.

[skeptik]

deleted

[patience]

We took a one day trip to a metalworkers' convention yesterday, in southern Illinois. This is a craftsman's Guild sort of deal, and most members are pretty well off. Attendance last year was over 200 people, some from as far a way as Canada, California, Massachusetts, the UK, and the Netherlands.

This year, attendance was 99 members, and ALL were crying about hard times. On the way home, we passed half a dozen Wal Marts in 120 miles, none of which had more than a few cars in the lot early on a Saturday evening. Saw a lot of small businesses that were shut down, such as body shops, radiator repair, motorcycle shops, and mechanics' shops. The area is almost all agricultural, with the exception of a small oil refinery in one town (Marathon, in Oblong, Illinois), that was going strong, according to locals. No other noteworthy employment in the area, according to locals, which has been pretty recession-proof for a long time, they say.

Back home in southern Indiana, the demise of the auto industry has gutted the manufacturing base of the economy. Most homes are in good repair yet, however, there were a fair number of unoccupied homes, as well.

This does not look good.

[emeraldg40]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JJ', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('tex123', 'I') thought I'd try to bring this thread back to life since we have a crisis of another kind at the moment.

If I didn't follow the market news and this website I wouldn't know anything had transpired except that the price of gas has dropped dramatically. This seems to be the attitude of many of my coworkers. "Draw money out of the bank, pull my 401K out of the market, are you crazy?" Many people think that the reason the gas prices plummeted is that those darn speculators have been stopped from running the price up. Most see Wall Street as completely detached from the real world and not effecting thier lives in any dramatic way. People around here are still going to work, still buying houses, still doing thier Halloween shopping, having parties, etc.. Most wonder what the government fuss is all about when nothing has substantially changed in thier lives.

Sometimes I feel like a nut for paying attention to all this bad news when most others are just riding it out and not worrying about a thing.

[alpha480v]

My wife and I went to a local Italian Restaurant in town on Friday nite. Great food, great ambiance, reasonable prices. Place has been a fixture here in town for 50 years. We went around 5:30.

Usually at that time the place is packed. Not tonite. Only three other couples dinning . One more came in when we left. We went to the mall afterwords. There were 11 empty store spaces. Things are getting worse at least around here. People don't have the discretionary income to spend anymore.

Recession? Yes I believe we are in one.

[Cloud9]

The local crate mill has shut down. It manufactured packing crates for vegetables. It employed about 100 people.

[JJ]

Wifes going to Macys' right now to spend her gift card at their liquidation sale.

[tex123]

Has anyone else noticed the price of laundry detergent and cat food lately? I was astounded a couple of weeks ago when a woman at Walmart said "has the price of laundry detergent gone up lately?"

As my husband buys the detergent in large quantities at Sams I hadn't bought any in over a year so I hadn't noticed what had happened. The price has almost doubled in that time. Tide (which I don't buy) is about $19.00 for a standard large bottle, other brands are not far behind.

I thought about the hyperinflation argument over the weekend and thought maybe this was an isolated incident, wondering what drove the price up so substantially. Then yesterday I bought dry cat food for my rodent eliminators. The price of cat food has also about doubled. I thought at first this was just the price of the organic stuff or the premium stuff but no, it was pretty much all of it. The kind I usually buy was gone as was any other kind that still had a reasonable price. The shelves were pretty bare. I haven't had a need to buy cat food in about 3 weeks and this has happened in that time. Are people eating this stuff already?

I have to wonder what other items this has happened to and if anyone else has noticed an alarming increase in the price of neccessaties.

[ReverseEngineer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('tex123', 'H')as anyone else noticed the price of laundry detergent and cat food lately? I was astounded a couple of weeks ago when a woman at Walmart said "has the price of laundry detergent gone up lately?" .

[MarkJ]

Commercial construction and traffic is still crazy. New restaurants, hotels, Targets, convienence stores, Wal-Mart SuperCenters, Walgreens etc. They're building a second Walmart SuperCenter in Queensbury NY as well as expanding or building other new Walmart SuperCenters.


Laundry Detergent prices are crazy. I buy El-Cheapo 50 Ounce 2X Concentrated detergent at the bargain stores for $1.99 to wash our work clothes and shop rags.

Simple things we buy like heavy paper towels, shop towels, paper plates, nitrile disposable gloves, cleaning chemicals, commercial hand wipes etc have doubled in price and/or they've reduced volume/quantity/quality etc.

[oiless]

Maybe phosphate prices went up?