Word: low
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...would mark the most sluggish season since 2002, when sales rose only 1.3%. Scott Krugman, NRF spokesman and vice president, says the dismal forecast should surprise no one. "It is surprising that we had a year's worth of bank consolidations on Wall Street in a week, but low consumer confidence isn't," Krugman says. "This was a slow downward progression throughout the year as far as retailers were concerned...
...Other experts are even more pessimistic. Archstone Consulting, a retail consultancy based in Stamford, Conn., expects only a 0.5% to 1% sales increase for the holidays. "That's a very low number by historical standards," says Dave Sievers, Archstone's strategy and retail practice leader. "That would really translate into negative per capita growth, because we automatically expect some gains due to inflation and an expanding population, which usually average...
...been three weeks since Hurricane Ike blew ashore on Galveston Island bringing up to 20 feet of Gulf waters over the low-lying land, killing a still yet to be determined number of residents - several hundred remain missing - and inflicting billions of dollars in damage. The television satellite trucks and cable news stars are gone and the nation's collective eye has turned elsewhere. But thousands of area residents now live in a stench-filled world where the incongruous is normal and the dangerous real...
There is order emerging from the chaos. Randalls supermarket and its in-house Starbucks is open, but with the island water and sewer system still not functioning, portable toilets have been lined up outside. Dozens of moldy, battered refrigerators ripped out of the low-rise seaside condos are corralled on street corners. Stacks of new drywall stand outside. Just two blocks from the beach, a tall wire fence has been erected around the gas pumps and doorway of Luke's Supermarket and Deli, a 50-year island institution where West Enders could sit out front and munch on barbecue...
...Fires are forbidden. There is a dusk-to-dawn curfew and residents are warned to get shots for tetanus and hepatitis before returning. Downtown, with its brick and ironwork Victorian-era buildings - once dubbed the "Wall Street of the Southwest" - is a ghost town. The only sound is the low howl of dehumidifiers sucking moisture out of bank buildings and churches...