EUA: o estranho caso do desaparecimento do consumidor - the Sovereign Investor

Curioso mesmo: se os consumidores americanos desaparecem (maneira de dizer), o que é que os chineses vão fazer?
Passar a consumir tudo aquilo que eles produzem para o mercado americano?
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

America’s Dangerous Addiction
By Jocelynn Smith, Sr. Managing Editor
The Sovereign Investor, August 20, 2016

The American consumer is in trouble.

The first sign that consumer health is fading comes out of the retail sector. We’ve seen retailer after retailer this earnings season either cut its outlook or slash its store count.

Just this quarter:

Macy’s announced that it’s closing more than 100 stores.

Target suffered its first same-store sales drop in more than two years and cut its full-year forecast due to declining sales.

Gap is planning to close roughly 50 stores and cut its outlook for the full year.

J.C. Penney reported weak sales and yet another quarterly loss.

Nordstrom suffered its first quarterly revenue decline in seven years.
Sure, I’ll give you that everyone seems pleased with Wal-Mart’s report that same-stores sales rose 1.6% compared to guidance for a 1% increase, but that doesn’t seem quite enough to get excited about. If shoppers aren’t showing up at Macy’s, Target, Gap and J.C. Penney, it certainly doesn’t look like they’re making a mad dash to Wal-Mart to spend their money.

Part of the decline in traditional sales can be blamed on Amazon and the shift among consumers to buy more online. They enjoy the convenience and ease of shopping online — that way you avoid traffic and other shoppers — combined with cheap, fast shipping.

But the frightening side of the decline comes from the fact that the American consumer is running low on cash. Despite the constantly touted rebound in the jobs market, Americans aren’t making nearly enough to support themselves.

In fact, they’re going back to bad habits. The New York Fed announced earlier this month that U.S. household debt jumped by $35 billion to total $12.3 trillion in the second quarter, with the bulk of the increase coming from auto loans and credit cards.

After everything came crashing down in 2008, consumers worked hard to cut debt from 2008 to 2013, with the total dropping by $1.5 trillion. But since the start of 2014, we’ve been desperate to spend, but don’t have the money. In less than two years, we’ve nearly returned to the 2008 peak.

As Chad Shoop stated at the beginning of August, the consumer is the last pillar supporting a very slowly growing economy. And that support is being built on a mountain of debt. That’s not exactly the sound foundation we could hope for when it comes to seeing stellar future growth.

Eventually, it’s all going to come tumbling down.