Spend up but travellers not so lavish in Great Singapore Sale



Was looking for sales figures from this year's Great Singapore Sales 2009, which stretches from the June-July period. Found the above. So it looks like while tourism has dipped, local spenders are making up the numbers, for now.

That's what it looked like to me on the ground as well. The first few weeks were madness at the malls, everyone was spending like there was no tomorrow. But in recent days, past week or two, that's pulled back noticeably. Give the number crunchers a few more weeks to tally up all the figures and we'll see how GSS 2009 went overall.

Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach also said he's immediately rolling back the liquor tax increases that were introduced in the spring budget.


That's my kind of economic stimulus.

I spent last evening with a friend of mine who is a commercial plumber. He and his crew have put in the plumbing for new Wal-Mart stores through out Florida. I have never seen his mood so dark. A good bit of the night’s discussion centered around arable land and stockpiling seed and fertilizer. This is light years away from where the discussion was six months ago.

The local county is $8.8 million short. The mood is somber as the county considers lay offs and budget cuts.

http://www2.highlandstoday.com/content/ ... references

Monitoring the commercial real estate situation over here.

A video/DVD shop has closed down in the mall across the street, and so far no replacement shop has come in. This is the transport/commercial nexus for my local town of maybe around 140,000. A bit unsettling considering how I heard of 2-3 years tenant waiting lists, back during better times.

Noticing more shops being boarded up nowadays, even in the downtown/city area.

Hit a few yard sales yesterday and today.

Buyers have changed; saw an almost new Jag, Mercedes, and Lexus among the usual cars!

Last month in Singapore I too noticed many vacancies. In years past there were essentially none.

I wonder if that's happening in major urban areas throughout Asia.

Things are booming around here! Low interest rates have spurred on huge house sales.
Contractors I know are getting busy again after a slow winter/early spring.
It's really strange, especially knowing how it is in most of the rest of N.A.
It also remains to be seen if these people rushing in to buy, mostly first timers, will get burned when interest rates increase in the future but for now it's full speed ahead.

I can't help but wonder if this isn't just another example of the 're-urbanization' trend that's being seen in some areas of the States as well. People have to live somewhere after all.

Yeah, maybe.
It's kind of a mystery to me.
Our household income is only slightly higher than the rest of Canada but our benchmark price for single family homes is more than double. Nearly $800,000! It's crazy how so many people seem willing to sign up for these huge mortgages.
Sure, interest rates are very low but that is still a pile of debt.
There are a lot of theories on the RE boards like "everybody wants to live in Van.", the Winter Olympics in 2010, Asian buyers, "best place on earth", drug money buying, etc. but still none of that makes sense to me when prices are so far out of whack to incomes.

I think the fact that the economy seems to be booming in Canada (see my previous post in this thread about what I see around Toronto) perhaps is a sign that Canada will pull through this downturn fairing much better than the US. Canada doesn't have nearly the debt (even relative to gdp) that the US has, there hasn't been one single bank failure or bailout, and of course the rest of the world is very interested in buying up all the resources that are now not shipping to the US. There are so many little items as well - like the fact that most Canadians do not drive around in monster gas guzzling trucks and SUVs like I see clogging the roads in American cities when I travel. Plus, there just isn't the same level of 'keeping up with the Joneses" mentality that drives people beyond their means.

WOW! That is huge! I know which one you're talking about. I can't believe they think they might need Road Warrior-type convoys here in Texas.

I actually really like that company and that is where I do my shopping.

NYTimes: An Oasis of Stability Among the Downturn

It really is getting scary how many wealthy people are moving here, driving up prices and changing the culture. As long as they don't bitch about the lack of parking I get along with most of them anyway.

In one day's mail this week, I got an ad for a furniture store (Bedford, IN)going out of business. Yeah, they do that every 6 months and open the next day with a new name, but this is different. Store fixtures and real estate are being sold also. The store has been there for 50 years, but they are toast now.

Same day, I got an auction ad for "surplus equipment", where 3 local (Louisville, KY) metal fab shops have merged (to stay alive), and are selling off about 3/4 of their now jointly owned machines. Lotsa layoffs there, too.

Same day, I got 3 coupon flyers of different sorts from the big hardware store in our town. They took a chance about 5 years ago and greatly expanded their store, which now includes more light fixtures and electrical supplies, a huge paint section, a stock of farm related tools and hardware, a Radio Shack, and a rental setup for concrete mixers, trailers, all sorts of big tools. Two years ago, they expanded again and added an area devoted to lawn and garden, work clothes and shoes/boots, plus a JC Penney Catalog outlet. When I was there a week ago, there were 5 or 6 cars in the lot, at midday. Should have been 30+. Their shelf stock has been dwindling for about 8 months now. It looks bad for them at the moment.

Same day, I got a big ad from the new Family Dollar store, built last year. 2 cars is average in their lot. When they opened the Dollar General Store increased their store hours, and kept almost all the business. Family Dollar is in trouble.

Along the same lines, a new women's and children's clothing store opened in a new strip mall last Spring (Peebles), but has very few customers. Across the street is a Goodwill store, which is always busy. I doubt if Peebles lasts very long. Really bad timing to have a new store with no established clientele right now, IMHO.

Harvest time is here, so our farm repair shop is swamped, and all the customers are complaining about high prices at the equipment and parts places, which is why they are having me fix things.

I'm not surprised.. employment with the federal government and related industries is one of the few bright spots right now. Unfortunately, the entire nation can't just huddle within the DC metro area like some kind of Baghdad-esque Green Zone.

Message to Versailles on the Potomac: the cake's all gone and we need some jobs in the provinces.

Bing got a credit card from Wells Fargo today with a 10,000. limit. snip snip snip.

Yea, we don't have a great sea port, or wonderful mountains or even a very productive river, so we have to make do with what nature gave us !

But, anyway it wasn't a suggestion for other, just reporting on the local economy. Although the idea of becoming less car dependent I think is a more robust model (given the energy situation) than the direction much of the rest of the region/country is following relative to transportation.

Coming to 3 months now, and that particular shop is still unoccupied. What's worse is, it now really does look boarded up, as in they put up those crappy big white wooden boards and covered up all the glass-walled sides leaving a door with a lock on it and no apparent activity inside.

Folks, where *are* the green shoots? I see asset and now commodity price inflation with the money suppy rush starting to work its way into the system. Apparently property values are picking up. And so is the job market (I said so before to fellow investors in my group, to watch for Q3-Q4), but the jobs angle is a little questionable to me in a number of aspects.

Oh, and watch that "ghost ship fleet" off the shores of my country. And watch the BDI. If it goes down = more ghost ships, vice versa.

The bride deserved some time out on the town, at least as we define out on the town. To celebrate 5000 days of matrimony we went to the "big city" and I was surprised about how much had changed since I had last been through that part of town (the mall area).

What really shocked me was how busy the mall and the restaurants were. If this is the greatest economic downturn since the great depression I am confounded. We had to wait for a table at the Olive Garden. I was not too surprised to see how full the thrift stores were (Halloween is coming up) but all the store parking lots seemed full.

I do not have a lot to compare this to, perhaps people were doing some early Xmas shopping or the like bt I was surprised none the less. The only thing I could think was, "Americans have forgotten how to act in a recession."

I took the boss lady and the kids out last night. We were the only people in the place. Sad, they won't be open much longer

+1 for green shoots : that particular shop is now renovating and re-emerging as a cafe
+1 for brown weeds : a travel agency on the floor above has had its sign taken down, now officially closed

I'm amazed that this apartment project is breaking ground next month

It was approved in 2004 and contained 70 subsidized units to be affordable at 50% of area median income. The developer was going to pay that subsidy from rental profit it would receive from 46 "market-rate" units in the same project augmented with low-interest loans from the state and local government.

The project was delayed because nearby resident sued all the way to the Virginia Supreme court because they said it was too tall.

There was also a Federal lawsuit brought because the developer in this case is a Church and they said the loans from the state violated the seperation of Church and state. All lawsuits have been dismissed and the project is moving forward. It's one crazy looking thing too...

Here is the Church's Site on the project