Another week-and another shopping trip with the S.O. God forbid we might actually do something useful on a Saturday-like play golf.
Today though we decided to liven it up a bit by exploring some. The weather this morning was beautiful-albeit somewhat cold. So off we set for the town of Arab AL. After its recent trashing in the media- I wanted to see the place. The S.O. was in the mood to hit their thrift shops.
The S.O. loves thrift shops. They are the closest approximation here to what they call “recycle shops” in Japan-but sadly our thrift shops are nothing near as good as the ones in Japan. Personally, I hate going to them-but if it keeps us from spending money-well then it can’t be a totally bad thing.
I do have to give the S.O. her due-she has an incredible knack for finding the diamond in the rough in these places. She has a good eye and does not just grab any old thing. She’s brought some good things home for very little money. That’s an instinct I like to encourage.
So we went to her favorite one here in Shopping Mall, then set off for Arab. Bounced around between a couple of antique stores and the Salvation Army store. Thought it was kind of odd that the Salvation Army store had the following sign posted:
Unattended children will be captured and used for medical experimentation.
You never know if they are kidding or not.
Fortunately, just about all of these places have books-lots of old books. So I get something to do while she sifts through racks of clothing and other things. Usually, I know we are in for a long siege when she sees the plates.
As I peruse the book section a couple of observations come to mind:
1) Readers Digest must have made a fortune on its Condensed Book series, judging by the number of those volumes that end up on the shelves of thrift shops. Probably loads of people bought them at the same time and the younger generation gave them away cleaning out the attic or the garage, or both.
2) A lot of people bought the book Scruples back in the day. The book had an incredibly dirty opening set of chapters-not that I would turn right to them as I look at the books today. 🙂
3) For all the popularity of the Left Behind series-it sure gets thrown out a lot. The devout must buy the book and then throw it away to lighten the load for the journey to the apocalypse.
4) Old National Geographics is a great way to kill time waiting for the S.O.
We got off fairly light today-no really big purchases and we got to see some countryside along the way. Looked as if this was the place to buy land if were so inclined-saw lots of houses sitting on what looked like a couple of acres. Lots of houses with boat docks on the lake too-but everyone knows those are big bucks.
I’d also point out that not one, not one single store, was devoid of customers today. In fact, it seems to my untrained eye that the volume of people shopping in the thrift stores was up from what it was last summer.
Sign of the economic times perhaps?
“I’d also point out that not one, not one single store, was devoid of customers today.”
90%+ of the people still have jobs. Remember 4-5% can’t or don’t want a job.
90%+ are still paying their mortgage.
Illegals are still crossing the border almost at free will. May even be encouraged to.
There are no food shortages or embargos of consumer products.
And I can’t wait till I get my big tax break from the stimulus bill?
The civilian labor force participation rate, at 65.5 percent in January, has
edged down in recent months. The employment-population ratio declined by 0.5
percentage point to 60.5 percent over the month, and by 2.4 percentage points
over the year. (See table A-1.)
The number of persons who worked part time for economic reasons (sometimes
referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was essentially unchanged in
January at 7.8 million; however, this measure was up by 3.1 million over the
past 12 months. Included in this category are persons who would like to work
full time but were working part time because their hours had been cut back or
because they were unable to find full-time jobs. (See table A-5.)
Persons Not in the Labor Force (Household Survey Data)
About 2.1 million persons (not seasonally adjusted) were marginally attached
to the labor force in January, about 400,000 more than 12 months earlier. These
individuals wanted and were available for work and had looked for a job sometime
in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not
searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. Among the marginally at-
tached, there were 734,000 discouraged workers in January, up by about 270,000
from a year earlier. Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for
work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The other 1.4 million
persons marginally attached to the labor force in January had not searched for
work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey for reasons such as school attendance
or family responsibilities. (See table A-13.)
From the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
7.6 Million is still a lot of people-especially if you are one of them.
You lucky bastard!
When I last dwelled in shopping mall land EVERYTHING but restaurants was closed on Sundays–thank you the Blue Laws!