You can tell when you’ve got a Democrat President in a bad economy. You don’t hear that much about the rise ein bankruptcies and stores going out of business. There have been a lot of them. The response to the Wuhan Flu killed off a lot of businesses, as did the harm done to the supply chain, but even those cannot compare to the rising cost of doing business and inflation.
Lumber Liquidators is closing all of its remaining stores (442 total) with about 342 still operating).
It is not the only home improvement and furniture chain to be affected. Appliances retailer Conn’s HomePlus is closing all its 170-plus stores stores.
Meanwhile, Badcock Home Furniture & More said in July it is shutting all 380 stores. The 120-year-old retailer was based throughout the southern US. …
There were almost 2,600 store closures in the first four months of 2024. If that trend continues, almost 8,000 will have been lost by the end of the year.
Last week, it emerged that Big Lots – which has already shut a quarter of its 1,400 stores – is on brink of bankruptcy. The news sunk shares by 50 percent.
In recent months, Walmart has closed three more of its underperforming locations. Best Buy closed ten in March.
Wait! There’s More!
Dollar stores have been hit hard too, with 99 Cents Only announcing in April it would shutter all 371 of its locations across California, Texas, Arizona and Nevada.
The 1,000 closures of Family Dollar and its sister company Dollar Tree will happen over the next three years.
Express – a mall staple – filed for bankruptcy in April and said it would shut 95 Express outlets alongside all of its UpWest stores.
At the start of May, Rue21 – the teen fashion chain that is a fixture in malls across America – also said it will shut all its 543 US stores after going bust.
Add to this the hundreds or thousands of small businesses that can’t keep their doors open.
Anyone who wants four more years of this has to be crazy. And anyone who thinks we can fix it in four years is insane. But it has to start somewhere, and all roads away from ruin lead to November 2024.
