The Cause and Consequences of the Retail Apocalypse.
The Macy’s near my house is closing early next year. The mall where it’s located has seen less and less foot traffic over the years, and losing its anchor store could set off a chain reaction. Cities across the country are facing this uncertainty, with over 6,700 scheduled store closings; it’s become known as the retail apocalypse.
This story is at odds with the broader narrative about business in America: The economy is growing, unemployment is low, and consumer confidence is at a decade-long high. This would typically signal a retail boom, yet the pain rivals the height of the Great Recession. RadioShack, The Limited, Payless, and Toys“R”Us are among 19 retail bankruptcies this year. Some point to Amazon and other online retailers for wrestling away market share, but e-commerce sales in the second quarter of 2017 only hit 8.9 percent of total sales. There’s still plenty of opportunity for retail outlets with physical space.
The real reason so many companies are sick, as Bloomberg explained in a recent feature, has to do with debt. Private equity firms purchased numerous chain retailers over the past decade, loading them up with unsustainable debt payments as part of a disastrous business strategy.
Billions of dollars of this debt comes due in the next few years. “If today is considered a retail apocalypse,” Bloomberg reported, “then what’s coming next could truly be scary.” Eight million American retail workers could see their careers evaporate, not due to technological disruption but a predatory financial scheme. The masters of the universe who devised it, meanwhile, will likely walk away enriched, and policymakers must reckon with how they enabled the carnage.
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Half of it was outdoor animal housing & fencing. The other have was stuff I hardly ever used, & holiday decorations. One day a friend told me, "You'll die with thing." After that, I was determined to get rid of it. It took most of a summer, working a few evenings a week & Saturdays, but we got rid of it. The wild life refuge was delighted to get our rabbit cages, & humane traps for catching wayward critters, & our makeshift fencing we used to keep our ducks in one area of the yard. And the local thrift shops came to know me by name. What a great feeling to get rid of all that stuff and save a fair amount of money, too. 
But if my friend hadn't said that, I might still have it. 
My SIL works at a storage locker place & they rarely have more than 3 vacancies at a time. I don't know how many units they have, but it looks like at least a hundred.
