Target's getting hammered. Their grocery business takes just 3 percent of the share of total grocery sales in the U.S. And folks aren't shopping for the quasi-fashionable Target brand --- Tar-Jay.
Maybe Target's the next Bed Bath & Beyond?
At WSJ, "Consumers cut back on nonessential items as sales come in flat; rise in theft cuts into profit."
From Douglas Murray, at the New York Post, "Undocumented, underhoused chestfed kids are not in a recession, say Dems":
“We should avoid a semantic battle” said Janet Yellen yesterday. “A what?” In short it seems what the Treasury Secretary means is that we should not use the word “recession.” That is a shame, because people, including Yellen’s boss, used to like to use the word a lot. In October 2020, when he was running for office, Joe Biden said “President Obama and I left Donald Trump a booming economy – and he caused a recession. He squandered it just like he has everything else he’s inherited in his life.” He said the same thing in September 2020, claiming that American was in a “recession created by Donald Trump’s negligence.” Fast forward a couple of years and The White House is now reframing the meaning of the word and warning us all not to use it. It is true that until yesterday it was generally agreed that two straight quarters of negative GDP growth was the common definition of a recession. But yesterday President Biden said, “That doesn’t sound like a recession to me.” This fact should surprise no one. Because re-naming things is one of the left’s favorite pastimes. If you cannot change the facts then you can at least change the language around the facts. By doing so you can massage the facts, make them less concerning and in the process wish reality away. For a time, at least...
Yes, the White House is "bracing" being attempting to redefine what a recession is.
At Politico, "White House braces for grim news on economy":
Bracing for impact: Even if Thursday's GDP report shows a second consecutive quarter of negative growth, you won't hear the Biden admin using the R-word.
— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) July 24, 2022
The Council of Economic Advisers is redefining what a recession is...🤔https://t.co/HHBYJKqP5V pic.twitter.com/gecR93vPPj
Senior administration officials are hitting the airwaves and arm-twisting reporters in private, imploring anyone who will listen that the economy is still healthy. The White House is scrambling behind the scenes and in public to get ahead of a potentially brutal economic punch to the face that could give Republicans the chance to declare that the “Biden recession” is under way. Wall Street analysts, economists and even some in the Biden administration itself expect a report on Thursday to show the economy shrank for a second straight quarter, meeting a classic — though by no means the only — definition of a recession. Senior administration officials are hitting the airwaves and arm-twisting reporters in private, imploring anyone who will listen that the economy — despised by majorities of both Republicans and Democrats fed up with inflation — is still healthy. But White House officials admit that changing people’s minds is a daunting task as the highest inflation in four decades severely cuts into wages even as the economy continues to churn out jobs and Americans keep spending. Economic Advisers and one of Biden’s longest-serving aides, said in an interview. “What we are trying to do is explain things in a much more nuanced way than most people are getting from the daily news flow.” Bernstein’s CEA and the Treasury Department are cranking out blog posts and studies arguing that the current post-pandemic moment — while strange and disconcerting to many Americans — is nowhere close to a recession. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen showed up on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday and declared, “This is not an economy that is in recession.” On Monday, senior Biden aide Gene Sperling ventured into hostile territory on Fox News. The next day, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese joined the White House briefing to make the case. Aides are even quietly praising occasional White House nemesis Larry Summers, the voluble former Treasury secretary who on Monday said on CNN that anyone who says we are in a recession now is “either ignorant” or “looking to make political points.” Summers still believes a recession is likely in the relatively near term. Biden on Friday afternoon received a briefing from Yellen, Deese, Sperling, CEA Chair Cecilia Rouse, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, Budget Director Shalanda Young and Amos Hochstein, coordinator of international energy policy at the State Department. The lengthy, remote session focused on just how much gas prices are dropping (a White House fixation), the impact of that decline on consumers and continuing geopolitical issues — mainly the war in Ukraine — that could still send oil and gas prices soaring again. White House press staff are also regularly convening background briefings with economics reporters and senior administration officials to talk up the economy’s strengths, no matter what the GDP numbers say this week. For their part, Republican leaders sense an opportunity to leverage their already big advantage on the economy as a midterm election issue and ride it to even larger gains in November than polls predict...
