Thursday 14 July 2011

Smells Like?


Biggest fall in sales at DJs on record

David Jones says a dramatic plunge in consumer confidence among well-heeled shoppers, exacerbated by carbon tax fears, has led to a record fall in sales.
Hey dickhead, people have been using their spiralling home equity to splash out. Now they are losing $1000+ a week from the gabled roof Ponzi and the ATM in the garage is running out of cash. A primo example of how falling home values will infect business at EVERY level. Wait until the unpemployment is over 10%+ as the contagion spreads and the feedback loop gets stronger*.



Unemployment WILL rise (click on chart to expand)...



The company says it will consider more aggressive discounting, but believes the Australian retail industry is in uncharted territory.
No shit. Its well charted in the USA, Ireland, Spain etc. You ain't seen nothing yet.

"We saw a decline in May with slight negative sales, but we saw a significant decline in June and July and the result were certainly unprecedented," chief executive Paul Zahra told a media teleconference on Thursday.
"As far back as our records show, we haven't seen these sorts of declines in sales."
There was no Carbon Tax in June but there was significant data showing house price declines.

"I don't really know what we're entering into, but our future guidance fully factors in that negative sales environment."
How many million does this dickhead get paid?

*Feedback Loop.  Decline Home Equity (leads to)> Declining Consumer confidence/Spending>Rising Unemployment (Construction and Retail first hit)>Declining Home Equity (Rinse and Repeat). Now add panicking baby boomers "cashing out bfore its too late" and Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) that used home equity as collateral, getting credit lines slashed or loans called in.

3 comments:

  1. I agree as you would know, it is all due to the end of the credit party. RF would you please explain to me just how some think a reduction in rates is going to have any kind of a significant impact at all??? It just won't. The point of debt saturation has been reached. House prices are not likely to experience strength for some time. The claims that mining is ruining the rest of the country are clearly false. Fact is the rest of the country in in stagnation with prospect for decline and then (external shock excluded) we really will be a two speed economy, actually three speed - mining states, canberra and the rest.

    The only way government is going in any way to compensate lost revenues from the 'rest' is, hopefully to some extent, via resources. What else apart from bureaucracy is growing?

    CF

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  2. Agree totally. Resources and whats left of manufacturing is the ultimate fallback.

    We need to bolster R&D (mining and manufacturing); Take Australian corporate ownership of our mines so the money stays here*; Bolster and encourage manufacturing.

    Interest Rate lowering has NEVER stopped a housing crash.

    Cheers,
    Jesse

    *What about using super funds to buy foreign owned mines?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Just a heads up - what you have described there is a positive feedback loop. Positive feedback loops only go in one direction i.e. up or down. They act in the same direction as the step change, which is why they are unstable. In engineering, positive feedback loops are avoided because are unstable and result in a loss of control.

    Negative feedback loops lead to equilibrium after a step change, as they oppose the step change.

    ReplyDelete