Shop Till You … Nevermind

There was no Christmas miracle for U.S. retailers this holiday season, as deteriorating consumer confidence and a worsening job market sent holiday sales plummeting.

How bad was it?

Well, according to one industry analyst, it could be the worst holiday shopping season in half a century.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

“The results will be a debacle. Horrible. Terrible. Sales will be down maybe 6 percent [from last year] — the worst in 50 years,” said Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates Inc., a New York-based national retail consulting and investment banking firm.

Official numbers won’t be released until Jan. 8, when retailers report December sales results. But SpendingPulse, a report by Mastercard Advisors, estimated Friday that holiday retail sales dropped 2 percent to 4 percent from a year ago. The National Retail Federation had predicted a 2.2 percent increase, to a total of $470.4 billion.

So what does that mean?

Store closings, of course. At least 73,000 retail locations will disappear during the first half of 2009 alone as a result of these numbers, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers.

And what does that mean?

More job losses, people.

It’s a vicious cycle, people. One only worsened by the recent spate of government interventionism.

Wonder how much noisier holiday cash registers would’ve been had we actually put some of that bailout money into people’s pockets?

Hell, if we’re going to jack the national debt to $14 trillion we might as well give it to the people who are responsible for paying hundreds of billions in interest payments each year.