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To: Victor Lazlo who wrote (107879)	9/3/2000 12:36:13 AM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

Glenn you have never insulted me or picked on me. I meant that with your many years experience in retail you have direct experience in the consumer area that I do not have, thus you could probably poke holes in my argument. Sorry I was not clear. Victor, That makes feel better. That is never my intent with anyone. Maybe so, but even Whirlpool and Maytag are suffering from a slowdown in sales of major appliances. It may not matter which retailers are selling v. not if the slowdown is across the board. I believe we are in the same camp but possibly looking at it differently. Durable goods such as major appliances, automobiles, new housing, etc. are slowing. There is no question and one feeds another as you pointed out. Slower building of new houses reduces the demand for major appliances. I suppose we could continue the follow through and slower automobile sales also slows the sale of the parts for automobile. Most people finance the above products. I am not sure how representative the SI membership is of the average consumer. My guess is the average income is higher so many people on SI may not finance a major appliance or an automobile. A house LOL??? Anyhow, we are not representative. The average person is not willing to finance major purchases now or at least not as much as in the past. I hate to use Wal-mart as an example since everyone always refers to them but their same store sales are continueing to increase and rapidly. Management even stated they do not see a slow down in consumer spending. Wal-mart is still executing well. There is a Wal-mart Supercenter by the shopping center where one of my stores are located and also a Super Kmart or whatever they call them. The execution difference is like night and day. If you are lookign for a product that you expect these type stores to carry, it is far more likely that Wal-mart will have it over Kmart. You need help locating it? Walmart has employees around to ask. As was said in "Rainman", Kmart sucks;-) I know the recent goverment report was that the saving rate, which has been negative, is more negative but real income has not decline. I do not know if the government figures count durable goods in this calculation. That is where I am totally lost. That is kind of like the inflation issue where they take our food and energy??? Makes no sense to me. Back to the retailers that are not just mass merchandisers. The group of Federated Department Stores are showing same store sales growth and I would say Federated executes well with all their different brand names. JC Penneys is likely the worst executing large chain at the moment and their same store sales are declining badly. Sears was holding their own but I suspect the major appliance slow down will hurt them since they are the largest retailer of major appliances in the US. This was a long post to state that executing bread and butter from style to mass merchandisers are growing same store sales. These dollars spent used by the government may be excluding the major factors such as housing and automobiles as you said. I am not sure I even have a point here LOL. I do and will get right to it now. Large shopping centers where there is a mix of mass merchandisers and style department firms are reporting that gross sales are increasing. They know this because they receive a percentage of revenue under the leases.This metric surely excludes housing and autos. This metric is not slowing is my point. Glenn