Word: retailing
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...signals are abundant that the nearly seven-year-old expansion is stagnating. Retail sales are anemic, business inventories are growing, industrial output is shrinking, and the housing industry is struggling. Economists almost uniformly agree that growth during the next year will be very slow, but are divided about whether the U.S. will fall into a recession. The optimists forecast a "soft landing," characterized by minimal growth but no severe dislocation; the pessimists believe the long-running expansion is due for a bona fide recession, with widespread bankruptcies, loan defaults and layoffs...
Despite slipping retail sales, most consumers profess relatively little fear about the economy. In a TIME/CNN poll conducted last week by Yankelovich Clancy Shulman, 6 out of 10 adults described current conditions as fairly good or very good, down only a trifle compared with January. Looking ahead to the next twelve months, 72% expected conditions to stay the same or improve, while just 24% of those polled saw the economy getting worse. Asked about their spending plans in the coming year, 65% said they thought it would be a good time to buy a major household item -- a refrigerator...
...timely improvisations on his vintage designs ($90 to $225) and original concoctions of their own (all manufactured by Optec Japan), the Peoples people are scoring an eye-popping success. They have sold some 110,000 frames through a wholesale operation and opened accounts in chichi retail outlets from Europe to Japan to Australia. Says Richard Morgenthal, president of New York City's Morgenthal-Frederics Opticians: "I have not seen a phenomenon like it in the optical world. People are asking for Peoples frames by name...
...quarter of its teachers for the next academic year. The tax base has eroded from $175 million in 1965 to less than $50 million. Property values are so low that the town's tallest structure, the vacant twelve-story Spivey Building, was sold for $25,000. The number of retail businesses is less than 200 and steadily declining. The population, once 80,000, has shrunk to 55,000, 97% black and two-thirds on welfare...
...points to 2439.70, its highest level since the October 1987 crash. But when the sharp increases that took place during the first four months of the year are taken into account, wholesale prices are still zipping upward at a rapid 9% annual rate. The conflicting trend lines -- down in retail sales, up in producer prices -- heightened concerns about a return of 1970s-style "stagflation" -- spiraling inflation combined with sluggish economic growth...