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Empty Airports - Empty shelves a sign of bad economy
I just made a trip to Cleveland on a Monday night returning to Newark NJ on Wednesday night.
Well normally the wait at the airport is at least 25 minutes up to 40. The place was empty at 5PM rush hour! Walked right through. My Continetal flight on a Boeing 737 was only 25% full ?
On the way back on a 7:20PM flight 6 - 10 people on a Boeing 737! Yikes!
On Tuesday in the Cleveland suburbs the customer took us out to very expensive steak house as a reward for our efforts on their project. The place had no sign, hidden away out of the way, so popular that even on an off night you had to valet park, it was like a speakeasy, known for aged beef steaks! About $100 per person for dinner. Had to wait or have a connection with management to get a table.
So business is bad but it has its ups and downs.
The reduction in business travel is drastic.
The other thing I notice is that many stores have lots of empty shelf space as they attempt to reduce inventory exposure.
Dennis
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Empty Airports - Empty shelves a sign of bad economy
Dennis, I've discussed my experience of what up until recently was a one-state-recession (Michigan). Nationwide there wasn't much sympathy for us here---sort of "It sucks to be you--but I'm not you--good thing". All that recently changed. So now the rest of the world has only tasted what we have been living since 9-11. Two weeks after 9-11 I and many many others like me saw our income cut in half every year to the point I, like 25,000 here just in the last year, were forced into bankruptcy--that was not quite a year ago for me. What's worse is I've made less this past year than I did the year I went bankrupt. Our state has lost nearly 500,000 jobs in 8 years, and it will only get worse. In the 1980 Recession I was a teenager; I have not seen anything close to this.
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Empty Airports - Empty shelves a sign of bad economy
Indeed!!
I'm poking about south Florida at the moment, there's a fire sale going on, anything that isn't nailed down is for sale, for pennies on the dollar!!
I looked at boat the other day, a custom-built beauty just over a year old, it sold for roughly $75k new, it should now be worth ~$60k, the owner told me if I paid off the bank loan, ~$25k I could have it.
He has called me 3 more times sinve then, each time with a lower price.
Best of luck.
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Empty Airports - Empty shelves a sign of bad economy
Dennis, glad you were not on the other flight last night. Major difference in the last two crashes. Could not help but relate it to our country and yes the economy. Wonder which crash it will resemble.
Sad, those who killed in Buffalo.
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Empty Airports - Empty shelves a sign of bad economy
Jeff, understand what you were saying about Michigan. Yet at times we bring it on our selves. Poor decisions by business leaders and our government and if there is fraud of any type added in there it just makes it a slippery slope. I am afraid we have that combo in some of our highest positions of this county both government and business. We really are putting the foxes in charge of the hen house and he has invited his friends over for a feast at your's and my expense and our children and further generations. Least anyone think I am only speaking of one person, sadly it is much bigger than that.
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Empty Airports - Empty shelves a sign of bad economy
I live in Mid-Michigan and the economy is supposed to be terrible, which I agree that it is. My workload has gone to "zero".
We took our daughter out for her 25th birthday on Saturday, January 31. We couldn't make up our mind where to go, so we finally decided about 3 pm and called to make reservations. We wanted to eat between 6 & 7PM. We called four places that were all booked solid till 8:30. We finally got somebody to squeeze us in.
We have a fairly large mall that is rumored to be in financial difficulties, however, the traffic around it is terrible. I had trouble parking near the Sears store which is one that is supposed to be having trouble. Is everybody just looking and not buying?
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Empty Airports - Empty shelves a sign of bad economy
We had four people that were supposed to fly to Europe for a week long business trip. Three of them got cut due to budgetary reasons, so the business manager is supposed to speak for engineering. That ought to be interesting.
No shortage of stuff on the shelves here.
The only way out of this mess is to elect govt. officials and business leaders that are decent, moral people. That probably won't happen any time soon. Not sure there are enough decent and moral people left to make a difference.
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Empty Airports - Empty shelves a sign of bad economy
In my world there is a huge difference between "buying" something and actually "paying" for it, the latter implying you have money to pay for it, i.e. not using credit cards.
A friend has a restaurant that has been in his family for 50 years. He says his daily reciepts are over 50% for people using credit cards--which it never used to be--25% was normal. The implication is, and I know from personal experience, that once you lose your income all you have is credit cards to live on/off of, there is impending doom.
My bankruptcy attorney gave me several examples of pre-bankrupt credit card holders "going out in style" running their cards up--some had to pay it back, like the ones that took a Hawiian vacation.
It used to be in my field of residential construction that I would feel-out a potential customer to see if they were going to skip out and not pay me so they could flip a house, then I'd have to lien them.
Now, I have to ask even more about their financial situation so that I don't get caught in the midst of a bankruptcy which is two-pronged: 1. I don't get paid for services rendered and 2. Or I do get paid and have to pay back to the bankruptcy trustees anything over $600. I know of two such cases that happened years ago that one friend had to pay back $4000 and another $120,000.
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Empty Airports - Empty shelves a sign of bad economy
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Dennis, glad you were not on the other flight last night. Major difference in the last two crashes. Could not help but relate it to our country and yes the economy. Wonder which crash it will resemble.Sad, those who killed in Buffalo.
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Thanks!
My flight on Wednesday night was trying to stay ahead of the high winds coming fom the west. We had rough air the whole way and on a regional jet it feels a bit worse.
Dennis
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Empty Airports - Empty shelves a sign of bad economy
Now gentlemen, it is no wonder that our economy has gone asunder! One cannot spend on guns and ignore butter for so long. I do fear however that whilst we cannot hesitate to soften the situation, we have to act so suddenly that the program is sure to be wasteful in many areas.
Please be patient while I attempt to be "k e e p i n g i t c o o l!"
Good Bless the USA!
Barack
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