Burn It All Down

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Wal-Mart's core shoppers are running out of money much faster than a year ago due to rising gasoline prices, and the retail giant is worried, CEO Mike Duke said Wednesday.

"We're seeing core consumers under a lot of pressure," Duke said at an event in New York. "There's no doubt that rising fuel prices are having an impact."

Wal-Mart shoppers, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck, typically shop in bulk at the beginning of the month when their paychecks come in.

Lately, they're "running out of money" at a faster clip, he said.

"Purchases are really dropping off by the end of the month even more than last year," Duke said. "This end-of-month [purchases] cycle is growing to be a concern.

I don't suspect that the Wal-Mart CEO is concerned out of some sense of altruism. I'm pretty sure he's worried about the reduction in the flow of cash from 49 states to the Walton family in Arkansas. None of the Wal-Mart money stays local.

Still - the political and commentariat class insists that the real problem is that there is a budget deficit. Americans vote in a bunch of Republican governors that proceed to gut state programs, and we see the Worst President in the History of the United States getting behind policy aimed at reducing federal spending... all while the rate on government bonds is ridiculously low.

So.. what's going on is that people don't have any money to buy shit, thus demand is low.. and since demand is low, unemployment is high.. and it's just going to keep feeding on itself.

Want to know the best way to fix the economy? Load up helicopters with cash and start air dropping it all across the US. It wouldn't be good to drop an unlimited amount of cash, but enough so that people can buy crap made in China and sold at Wal-Mart.

....

I'm a fairly anxious person by nature, and I think at this point in my life, I'm the most relaxed I've ever been. My job is stable and has been for almost 10 years now, we've got money in the bank.. and the health situation is pretty good. If I were living "paycheck to paycheck" - I would be borderline psychotic.

I don't get how people do that, but I know they do. We gave one of John's employees 3 grand today otherwise she would have had her car repo'd and been evicted from her house. Bad shit happens to good people, and it's not really a moral failing that puts people in that position. Lack of planning does that.

Oh.. I've been broke before. I've been out of work and wondering who I was going to ask for money to pay the rent. I know how that shit goes. I just can't fathom that it's a permanent lifestyle.. and it is for a lot of Americans.

When bad shit happens, and you're fucked.. that's stressful.. but you know you can solve the temporary problem and work on getting the long term situation sorted out. If you just insist on spending every nickel you get, then that's a serious problem and one of the rolls of the "welfare state" should be to teach people how not to be that way.. because you can actually have a place to live, and eat, and save some money, all while on a very low paying job.

Americans are pretty good a pretending everything is okay, when it's not. I think sometime soon there will be a reckoning when we see violence and homelessness spike. I'm hoping it happens sooner rather than later so that we can get a new President in 2013.

After all - anybody that replaces Obama is going to scorch whatever is left of the middle class. We can make money off of that.