Just like we witnessed during the last recession, major retailers are laying off tens of thousands of workers, and it looks like this will be the worst year for store closings in all of U.S. history.  Many are referring to this as “the retail apocalypse”, and without a doubt this is one of the toughest stretches for retailers that we have ever seen.  But many believe that what we have witnessed so far is just the beginning.  After all, if retailers are struggling this much now, how bad will things be once the next recession really gets rolling?

Of course the truth is that things have been rocky for the retail industry for quite a few years, but the numbers are telling us that this crisis is really starting to accelerate.

According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, retail layoffs were up a whopping 92 percent in January and February compared to the same period a year ago.  The following comes from NBC News…

More than 41,000 people have lost their jobs in the retail industry so far this year — a 92 percent spike in layoffs since the same time last year, according to a new report.

And the layoffs continue to mount, with JCPenney announcing this week it would be closing 18 stores in addition to three previously announced closures, as part of a “standard annual review.”

Yes, competition from Internet commerce is hurting the traditional retail industry, but it certainly doesn’t explain a 92 percent increase.

And very few retailers have been able to avoid this downsizing trend.  At this point, even the largest retailer in the entire country has begun “quietly closing stores”…

Walmart is closing at least 11 US stores across eight states.

The stores include one Walmart Supercenter in Lafayette, Louisiana, and Walmart Neighborhood Market stores in Arizona, California, Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Washington.

For decades, Wal-Mart has been expanding extremely aggressively.

They have plenty of cash, and so the only way that it would make sense for them to close stores is if they anticipated that we are heading into a recession.

Here is a list of the addresses where Wal-Mart stores are closing…

6085 W. Chandler Blvd., Chandler, Arizona
3900 W. Ina Road, Tucson, Arizona
1600 Saratoga Ave., San Jose, California
712 N. Western Ave., Liberal, Kansas
1229 NE. Evangeline Trwy., Lafayette, Louisiana
3603 Broad River Road, Columbia, South Carolina
1757 W. Andrew Johnson Hwy., Morristown, Tennessee
2501 University Commons Way, Knoxville, Tennessee
7000 Iron Bridge Road, North Chesterfield, Virginia
2864 Virginia Beach Blvd., Virginia Beach, Virginia
7809 NE. Vancouver Plaza Dr., Vancouver, Washington

Of course Wal-Mart is in far better shape than almost everyone else in the industry.

One of Wal-Mart’s key competitors, Shopko, has just announced that they will be shutting down all of their stores…

Shopko will liquidate its assets and close all of its remaining locations by mid-June.

The company was unable to find a buyer for the retail business and will begin winding down its operations beginning this week, the company said in statement released Monday. The decision to liquidate will bring an end to the brick-and-mortar business that began in 1962 with one location in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

And personally I was very saddened to learn that Lifeway Christian Bookstores has also decided to close all their brick and mortar stores…

Lifeway Christian Bookstores announced last week it would be closing the doors of all 170 brick and mortar stores, in a pivot to focusing on digital and e-commerce.

“The decision to close our local stores is a difficult one,” said Lifeway Chief Executive Officer Brad Waggoner. “While we had hoped to keep some stores open, current market projections show this is no longer a viable option.”

Whenever I do an article like this, I always have some readers that try to convince me that this is only happening because of the growth of Internet retailing.

And yes, Internet retailing has been growing, but it still accounts for less than 10 percent of all U.S. retail sales.  In addition, it is important to point out that Internet retailers had a very disappointing holiday season just like brick and mortar retailers did.

Ultimately, the truth is that the U.S. economy has been steadily slowing down in recent months.

During the months of December, January and February, the amount of stuff being moved around the country by truck, rail and air was lower than during all of those same months a year earlier.  The following comes from Wolf Richter…

Now it’s the third month in a row, and the red flag is getting more visible and a little harder to ignore about the goods-based economy: Freight shipment volume in the US across all modes of transportation – truck, rail, air, and barge – in February fell 2.1% from February a year ago, according to the Cass Freight Index, released today. The three months in a row of year-over-year declines are the first such declines since the transportation recession of 2015 and 2016.

I have a feeling that when we get the final numbers for March that they will show that this streak has now extended to four months.

Right now, unsold goods are starting to pile up in U.S. warehouses at a rate that we haven’t seen since the last recession.  Many retailers that are barely clinging to life will simply not survive if economic conditions continue to deteriorate.

Unfortunately, it appears that things are only going to get rougher for the U.S. economy in the months ahead.

So more retail workers are going to get laid off, more stores are going to close, and there are going to be a lot more stories about our ongoing “retail apocalypse” in the mainstream media.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

J.C. Penney plans to close 27 stores this year, including 18 full-line department stores and nine home and furniture stores.

The store closures span at least 13 states, including California, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, New Jersey, and New York, according to employees of the closing stores, local reports, and government filings.

JCPenney has notified local media outlets of several store closures but has declined to provide a comprehensive list of the impacted stores to Business Insider.

The company did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

We compiled a list of the stores that have been announced for closure so far. Most of these stores will close by July 5. We will update this list as more closures are revealed.

• Pines Mall, 2901 Pines Mall Dr., Pine Bluff, Arkansas
• NewPark Mall, 500 Newpark Mall, Newark, California
• Ponce De Leon Mall, 2121 US Hwy 1 S, St. Augustine, Florida
• Glynn Place Mall, One Mall Blvd., Brunswick, Georgia
• Lakeforest Mall, 701 Russell Ave., Gaithersburg, Maryland
• The Orchards Mall, 1800 Pipestone Rd, Benton Harbor, Michigan
• 1215 S. Main St., Sikeston, Missouri
• 3402 S. Glenstone Ave, Springfield, Missouri (home and furniture store)
• 6933 S. Lindbergh Blvd, St. Louis, Missouri (home and furniture store)
• Hamilton Mall, 4405 E Black Horse Pike, Mays Landing, New Jersey
• Smith Haven Plaza, 9 Smith Haven Mall, Lake Grove, New York
• Cary Towne Center, 1105 Walnut St., Cary, North Carolina (closing May 3)
• Riverbirch Center Mall, 1041 Spring Lane, Sanford, North Carolina
• Greenwood Mall, 320 Bypass 72 Northwest, Greenwood, South Carolina
• Midway Mall, 4500 Midway Mall, Elyria, Ohio
• Northgate Mall, 401 NE Northgate Way, Seattle, Washington

Just two months into 2019, many more retail stores have announced their closures amid a slowing in consumer spending. The retail apocalypse is worsening and there are some major stores on “deathwatch;” which would mean going out of business forever.

According to Money.com, in a single 24-hour period last week, Gap, J.C. Penney, and Victoria’s Secret announced they would be closing more than 300 stores combined. These announced store closures come soon after retail companies made the difficult decisions to shut down all Payless ShoeSource and Gymboree stores throughout the U.S., and in the middle of Sears’ dramatic struggle to survive. (Sears closed out 2018 by filing for bankruptcy and closing roughly 140 Sears and Kmart stores. The company owns both retailers).

Some of these companies are restructuring debt and refiguring their business models in order to fight to stay alive in today’s fast-moving ultra-competitive retail world. They must be able to stay competitive and every store must offer a compelling alternative to Amazon in order to win over shoppers. Other retailers have already lost the battle, are hosting liquidation sales right now, and will soon disappear entirely, like Toys “R” Us and Bon-Ton before them.

Sears is still alive and kicking, but barely.  There are only 425 Sears and Kmart stores remaining compared to 2000 just five years ago.  Remaining employees are skeptical about their future with the company and rightfully so. Victoria’s Secret, JC Penny, and Payless are all closing several stores. Gymboree, GAP, and Ann Taylor are also on “deathwatch.”

Ascena, the company that owns retailer brands like Ann Taylor, Loft, and Lane Bryant, has been on death watch for at least a year, reported Money.com. It is in the middle of the process that began back in 2017 to close about 250 stores. Ascena said it operated about 5,000 stores as of 2016, and it was down to 4,600 stores at the end of 2018. Ascena’s stock price has also taken a beating. It plummeted over this time period when stores were closing, dropping from over $10 per share in 2016 to around $2.25 in early 2019.

The retail apocalypse is happening right before our eyes, as brick and mortar stores are going away quickly.

All over America retailers are going bankrupt and closing stores.  Of course this has been happening for years, but as you will see below the numbers have dramatically escalated during the early portion of 2019.  Our landscape is already littered with countless numbers of hollowed out stores and abandoned malls, and it is about to get a whole lot worse.  Retailers were hoping that a strong holiday season would turn things around, but that didn’t happen.  In fact, we just learned that retail sales in the United States suffered “their biggest drop in more than nine years” during the month of December…

U.S. retail sales recorded their biggest drop in more than nine years in December as receipts fell across the board, suggesting a sharp slowdown in economic activity at the end of 2018.

The Commerce Department said on Thursday retail sales tumbled 1.2 percent, the largest decline since September 2009 when the economy was emerging from recession.

Every time I write an article like this, a few commenters chime in and blame this entire trend on the rise of online retailing.  And without a doubt online retailing has been growing in recent years, but it still accounts for less than 10 percent of the entire industry.

If online retail sales were to blame for this latest drop, you would expect to see that reflected in the numbers.  But instead, when we look at the numbers what we find is that online retailers experienced “the biggest drop ever” during the month of December…

December online internet sales (non-store retailers) tumbled 3.9% MoM – the biggest drop ever

So brick and mortar retail sales are going down and online retail sales are going down.

It is starting to smell a lot like a recession, and many in the industry are starting to panic.

And when I say panic, I mean that they are closing stores at a pace that is far faster than last year.  In fact, so far retail store closings are 23 percent ahead of the pace set last year…

Coresight Research released an outlook of 2019 store closures Wednesday, saying there’s “no light at the end of the tunnel.”

According to the global market research firm’s report, six weeks into 2019, U.S. retailers have announced 2,187 closings, up 23 percent compared to last year. Those closings include 749 Gymboree stores, 251 Shopko stores and 94 Charlotte Russe locations.

Unfortunately, the number of store closings is about to double because Payless ShoeSource plans to declare bankruptcy and shut down 2,300 stores…

U.S. discount retailer Payless ShoeSource Inc plans to close all of its approximately 2,300 stores when it files for bankruptcy later this month for the second time in as many years, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

And Payless is far from alone.  If you can believe it, the number of retail bankruptcies in 2019 is “already at one-third of last year’s total”…

Bankruptcies also are continuing at a rapid pace “with the number of filings in the first six weeks of 2019 already at one-third of last year’s total,” the report states.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is what a retail apocalypse looks like, and we are still in the early chapters.

It is going to take some time for this drama to fully play out.  Just look at Sears – it is a money bleeding zombie of a company, but Eddie Lampert has convinced investors to give things one more try.  But they are going to zero, and so is JC Penney, and so are a whole host of other major retailers.

In the end, millions upon millions of square feet of retail space is going to be sitting vacant.  Some of the more economically depressed areas of the country are going to closely resemble ghost towns, and we are going to see a commercial real estate crisis that is off the charts.

Switching gears, we also just learned that the number of Americans that are at least 90 days behind on their auto loans is already “more than 1 million higher” than it was during the peak of the last recession…

More than 7 million Americans are 90 days or more behind on their vehicle loans as of the end of 2018, according to data released Tuesday by the New York Federal Reserve. That’s more than 1 million higher than the peak in 2010 as the country was recovering from its worst downturn since the Great Depression.

How is that possible?

I thought that the U.S. economy was supposed to be “booming”.

Isn’t that what they have been telling us?

In recent weeks I have repeatedly brought up current economic numbers that are even worse than the last recession, and yet so many people out there continue to insist that everything is just fine.

No, everything is definitely not “just fine”.

Economic activity is slowing down dramatically, and many believe that things are about to get a whole lot worse.  In fact, Peter Schiff is warning that what is ahead “is going to be worse than what we now call the Great Recession”…

People are going to realize that we checked into the monetary roach motel that I talked about from the beginning and that there’s no way out, and then the dollar is going to fall like a stone.

When they find out that it’s never over and it didn’t work, then there’s going to be nothing propping up the dollar and it’s going to drop like a stone, the price of gold is going to take off, and the recession that we’re entering into, which is going to be an inflationary recession, is going to be worse than what we now call the Great Recession.

Maybe it’s taken longer than we might have thought to play out, but this is the beginning of the end.”

I wish that I had better news for you today, but I don’t.

The retail apocalypse is accelerating, America’s debt crisis is starting to reach a critical level, and very challenging days are approaching for all of us.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

Over 20 major retailers have filed for bankruptcy since the beginning of last year, and in 2018 we may break the all-time record for annual store closings that was established just last year.  We are in the midst of the worst retail apocalypse in American history, and it appears to be picking up speed as retail giants such as Sears, JCPenney, Brookstone and Mattress Firm spiral toward bankruptcy.  We live at a time when the middle class is being systematically destroyed, and so the truth is that U.S. consumers simply do not have as much discretionary income as they once did.  Many large retailers believed that things would eventually turn around, and they have been fighting very hard to survive, but now time has run out for quite a few of them.

Mattress Firm

Everyone knew that Mattress Firm was in deep trouble, but it still surprised many of us when it was announced that they are officially planning to file for bankruptcy.  The following comes from Reuters…

Mattress Firm Inc, the largest U.S. mattress retailer, is preparing to file for bankruptcy protection as soon as this week, as it seeks to exit costly store leases and shore up its business, people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.

At this moment Mattress Firm has approximately 3,000 brick-and-mortar locations, and as those stores close down those abandoned buildings are going to be giant eyesores on street corners all over America.

Brookstone

When I was a kid back in the 1980s, it seemed like Brookstone had an outlet in every mall I visited.  But now Brookstone has filed for bankruptcy, and all remaining mall stores will be shut down…

Brookstone filed for bankruptcy and will close its remaining 101 mall stores.

The mall and airport seller, best known for massage chairs, quirky gadgets, and travel luggage, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in federal court on Thursday. It was Brookstone’s second bankruptcy round in four years.

Sears

Sears has been shutting down stores for years, but up until now they have never admitted that bankruptcy was on the horizon.

But now time has run out and emergency measures are required if Sears is to survive.  The following comes from CNN…

Sears is running out of time to fix its problems, the CEO says.

Eddie Lampert, who controls most of the company’s shares through his hedge fund, told the board on Monday that it must address “significant near-term constraints” in its cash position.

Of course Sears is still not actually using the term “bankruptcy”, but even CNN is admitting that Eddie Lampert used “language that suggested the company could be forced out of business”…

Lampert did not use the word “bankruptcy,” but he raised the possibility that creditors could be wiped out, a process that often takes place in bankruptcy court, without immediate action.

He also said it was in the best interest of stakeholders to “accomplish this as a going concern” — language that suggested the company could be forced out of business.

Those that have been following my work for a long time know that I have repeatedly stated that Sears is going to zero.

Now we appear to be on the precipice of that actually happening, and it is a very sad day for America indeed.

JCPenney

Speaking of retailers that are going to zero, JCPenney is absolutely drowning in debt and has a very dismal prognosis for the future…

Leaderless, $4 billion in debt and with a stock price below $2, the besieged retailer faces an uncertain fate after posting its latest round of dismal earnings.

“They’re in a leaky boat that eventually will sink,” said Mark Cohen, the director of retail studies at the Columbia Business School and a former CEO of Sears Canada and other department stores. “The prognosis for the future is not happiness.”

In the end, JCPenney is not going to survive, and so America will have to shop elsewhere for substandard clothing at inflated prices.

Bed Bath & Beyond

Nobody is suggesting that bankruptcy is imminent for Bed Bath & Beyond, but if they continue to have disastrous sales results it won’t be too long before they are on the chopping block too…

The struggling retailer said Wednesday that it was bringing on two top management consulting firms to help it cut costs and improve its merchandise. CEO Steven Temares did not name the firms.

The housewares retailer needs help. Shares of Bed Bath & Beyond plunged nearly 25% Thursday to their lowest level since March 2000 because of awful sales during the previous quarter.

We are moving into the most critical time of the year for retailers.  Most troubled chains will hang on through the next three months, but once we get to January and February we will see many of them give up the fight for good.

Meanwhile, some of the retailers that are still doing okay are warning that our trade war with China will likely mean much higher prices for consumers…

Walmart Inc. and Target Corp. are among the large retailers and food companies that have sent a letter to U.S. Trade Ambassador Robert Lighthizer warning that proposed tariffs on $200 billion on Chinese goods would hurt consumers and American businesses.

Walmart’s letter, dated Sept. 6, focuses on what it says will be the repercussions of the tariffs, which would apply to goods like food and beverages, personal care products like shampoo, detergents, motor vehicles and paper goods like napkins.

Of course U.S. consumers cannot exactly afford higher prices at this point.  U.S. consumers have been spending more than they are earning month after month, and they are making up the difference by going into ever-increasing amounts of debt.

This is not what a healthy economy looks like.

If we had a healthy economy, the middle class would be growing and retailers would be thriving.

But instead, the vacancy rate at U.S. shopping malls just hit the highest level in six years…

The vacancy rate at metro and regional malls around the United States hit 8.6% last quarter, the highest since the end of 2012, according to data released Monday by real estate research firm Reis (REIS).

Back then, the economy was still working its way out of a recession and an excess of malls had been built in the preceding decades. Retail vacancies peaked at 9.4% during the middle of 2011.

Things are not getting better for the U.S. economy.  We continue to see numbers that we have not seen since the last recession, and it appears that things will continue to deteriorate as we head into 2019.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

We are in the midst of the worst retail apocalypse in American history, and it seems to be getting worse with each passing month.  Many of the “experts” blame the growth of online retailers, and without a doubt online retail sales have been surging.  In fact, I sell far more through Amazon.com than I do through any other channel.  But the truth is that online retailers are not exactly taking over the world.  At this point, 91 percent of all retail sales still take place in brick-and-mortar stores, and that means that online retailers only account for about 9 percent of all retail sales.  Sadly, there is a much bigger reason why thousands of retail stores are closing down and millions upon millions of square feet of retail space is now sitting empty all over America.  The mighty U.S. consumer base was once primarily made up of middle class Americans, but the middle class in America has been on a slow, steady death spiral for many years.

So now the experts tell us that retailers that cater to high income and low income Americans are thriving, and those that once did so well selling to the middle class are fading away…

“The middle is disappearing — low and middle-income customers increasingly shop at discounters and dollar stores, forcing retailers that once served these customers, like Bon-Ton and its subsidiary brands, to close shop,” analysts from intelligence firm Gartner L2 wrote in a recent report on department stores.

The slow decline of the middle class in America has had an impact on retailers that haven’t adapted to the change. Increasingly, the most successful businesses in the sector have become more distinctly split into two sections: luxury and budget stores.

When I was growing up, it seemed like almost everyone that I knew was “middle class”, and the mall was the place to go on the weekends.

But now shopping malls are dying all over the country.  In fact, one brand new report says that shopping malls have not been this empty in the U.S. since we were coming out of the last recession…

U.S. malls haven’t been this empty since 2012, when the retail industry was clawing its way back after the Great Recession, according to a new report from real estate research firm Reis.

The vacancy rate at regional and super regional malls reached 8.6 percent in the second quarter of 2018, based on a survey by Reis of 77 metropolitan areas across the country. That was up from 8.4 percent in the prior period, and a high not seen since the third quarter of 2012, when the vacancy rate was 8.7 percent.

If the U.S. economy really is in “good shape”, why is this happening?

And the numbers for “local shopping centers” are actually even worse…

The vacancy rate last quarter, 10.2%, was higher than at malls in part because of hundreds of Toys “R” Us store closures.

Vacancies at local shopping centers increased in more than 70% of metro areas. Indianapolis, Dayton, and Wichita had the highest rates in the country.

If you didn’t know any better, you would be tempted to think that “Space Available” and “Going Out Of Business” were two of the hottest new retailers in the entire nation.

And the numbers that I just shared with you are actually quite understated.  In one of his most recent articles, Wolf Richter explained why this is the case…

But these numbers are deceptive – because something counts as “vacant” only when the landlord tries to fill it with another retailer.

Stores that emptied out and became zombie stores in zombie malls, or the Toys ‘R’ Us stores in bad areas with zero hopes of finding another retail tenant, etc. – they’re not being counted as “vacant” retail space because they’re no longer being marketed as retail space, and the square footage of that retail space disappears from the vacant retail space stats.

That space may remain shuttered and vacant for years, with a fence around that is catching tumbleweeds, as lenders tussle over who gets what, if anything, until the land can hopefully be sold to a developer who might bulldoze the walls and build an apartment complex on it.

We have never been through anything like this in modern American history.

2017 was the worst year for retail store closings in the United States that we have ever seen.  The number of retail stores that closed approximately tripled the number from 2016, and this year we are definitely on pace to shatter the record that we set last year.

And yet Americans continue to be exceedingly optimistic.  A poll that was just released found that 55 percent of all Americans believe that our best days are still ahead of us.

Hopefully they are right, but in the short-term things are looking rather grim.

For example, just today we learned that Sears is shutting down even more stores…

Sears Holdings, which owns both chains, said it informed employees Thursday that it would be shuttering nine Sears stores and one Kmart in late September. Liquidation is scheduled to begin as early as July 13, the company said in a statement.

With the additions, a total of 78 stores – 62 Sears and 16 Kmart locations – will close in September.

Of course Sears is not the only major retailer that is slowly liquidating.  Many of the biggest names in the entire retail world have announced that they are closing at least 100 locations in 2018.  The following comes from CNN…

Six hundred Walgreens have closed this year, while Bon-Ton, Sears and Kmart, Best Buy, Signet Jewelers, Mattress Firm, and GNC have all closed 200 stores or more this year. Claire’s, Foot Locker, and The Children’s Place have closed 100 or more locations.

If we still had a strong middle class, this would not be happening.

Not too long ago, I shared with you some absolutely shocking numbers about the decline of the middle class, and I would like to share them with you again now…

#1 78 million Americans are participating in the “gig economy” because full-time jobs just don’t pay enough to make ends meet these days.

#2 In 2011, the average home price was 3.56 times the average yearly salary in the United States.  But by the time 2017 was finished, the average home price was 4.73 times the average yearly salary in the United States.

#3 In 1980, the average American worker’s debt was 1.96 times larger than his or her monthly salary.  Today, that number has ballooned to 5.00.

#4 In the United States today, 66 percent of all jobs pay less than 20 dollars an hour.

#5 102 million working age Americans do not have a job right now.  That number is higher than it was at any point during the last recession.

#6 Earnings for low-skill jobs have stayed very flat for the last 40 years.

#7 Americans have been spending more money than they make for 28 months in a row.

#8 In the United States today, the average young adult with student loan debt has a negative net worth.

#9 At this point, the average American household is nearly $140,000 in debt.

#10 Poverty rates in U.S. suburbs “have increased by 50 percent since 1990”.

#11 Almost 51 million U.S. households “can’t afford basics like rent and food”.

#12 The bottom 40 percent of all U.S. households bring home just 11.4 percent of all income.

#13 According to the Federal Reserve, 4 out of 10 Americans do not have enough money to cover an unexpected $400 expense without borrowing the money or selling something they own.

#14 22 percent of all Americans cannot pay all of their bills in a typical month.

#15 Today, U.S. households are collectively 13.15 trillion dollars in debt.  That is a new all-time record.

This is why so many U.S. retailers are failing.

The once mighty U.S. consumer base is being hollowed out because the middle class in America is being eviscerated.

Yes, the wealthy are doing quite well for the moment, but an increasing number of signs indicate that things are about to take a negative turn for them as well.

For instance, just consider the following example from CNBC…

Manhattan real estate had its worst second quarter since the financial crisis, with prices and sales dropping and inventory rising, according to a new report.

Total sales in Manhattan fell 17 percent in the second quarter from a year ago, according a report from Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers and Consultants.

If we don’t find a way to turn things around, what we have witnessed so far is just the beginning.

The middle class will continue to die, retailers all over the country will continue to go out of business, and shopping malls will continue to turn into ghost towns.

And once we plunge into another recession, all of the trends that I have been talking about in this article are going to start moving much more quickly.  We truly are on the edge of disaster, and most Americans have absolutely no idea what is coming.

When sales have declined for 26 quarters in a row, you have got to know that your days are numbered.  Once upon a time, Sears was an unbeatable retail powerhouse.  It survived two world wars and the Great Depression, but thanks to competition from Amazon and other online retailers it may not even survive 2018.  On Thursday, shares of Sears fell to a depressingly low level of just $2.91 once news broke that the company was going to close dozens of more stores.  But to be fair, Sears doesn’t have a choice.  If you can believe it, Sears lost an astounding 424 million dollars during the first three months of 2018.  Frankly, I don’t even know how that is possible.  If all their employees did all day was flush one dollar bills down the toilet, I still don’t think that they could lose that kind of money.  This is a company that is being horrendously mismanaged, and as I have said so many times before, Sears is ultimately heading to zero.

Company revenue was down 30 percent during the first quarter of 2018 compared to a year ago, and store closings accounted for about two-thirds of that decline.

But same-store sales were way down too – 11.9 percent – and that means that more stores have to close.

Sears has announced that they have “identified 100 unprofitable stores” and that 72 of them will be shut down “in the near future”…

The retailer has identified 100 unprofitable stores in total, and it will begin closing sales at 72 of these stores “in the near future.”

“We continue to evaluate our network of stores, which are a critical component in our transformation, and will make further adjustments as needed and as warranted,” Sears said in a statement announcing its fiscal first-quarter results.

On Thursday, we got a list of 63 of the stores that will be closed, and you can see that list right here.  Additional store closings will be announced at a future date.

Of course this batch is just the latest in a long string of store closings.  The following comes from CNBC…

Sears and Kmart operated 894 stores at the end of the first quarter, 381 fewer than it did a year ago. Most recently in January, the embattled company announced the shuttering of 64 Kmart stores and 39 Sears stores, adding to the hundreds of closures that have taken place over the past few years. Some locations are currently being auctioned off online.

Sears CEO Eddie Lampert always tries to put a happy spin on things, but the truth is that he is just delaying the inevitable.

All over the nation, you can find empty former Sears stores in hundreds of rotting, decaying shopping malls.  When you add up all of the store closing announcements in the United States so far in 2018, it comes to a grand total of 77 million square feet of retail space.  This is a retail apocalypse of unprecedented size and scope, and if the U.S. economy really was in “good shape” this wouldn’t be happening.

You probably remember the old advertising campaign that urged us to “come and see the softer side of Sears”.  Well, now we are seeing the dying side of Sears as it prepares to roll over and go belly up.

If the company had gone really hard into online retailing 20 years ago, perhaps the outcome could have been different.  But then again, maybe not.  A very long list of other major retailers is closing stores as well, and if we soon enter another recession that is just going to accelerate the retail apocalypse that is currently unfolding right in front of our eyes.

In 2017 we absolutely shattered the all-time record for retail store closings in a single year, and this year it looks like we are going to shatter the record once again.  In fact, there are some that are projecting that up to 9,000 retail stores could close by the time that we get to the end of this calendar year.  Already, the amount of retail space that has shut down is simply jaw-dropping.  If you total up all of the retail store closings that have been announced so far in 2018, it accounts for 77 million square feet of retail space.  Let that number sink in for a bit.  Many shopping centers and strip malls around the country already have a post-apocalyptic feel to them, and more “space available” signs are going up with each passing day.  And in case you are tempted to think that I am making this figure up, here it is straight from Bloomberg…

At last count, U.S. store closures announced this year reached a staggering 77 million square feet, according to data on national and regional chains compiled by CoStar Group Inc. That means retailers are well on their way to surpassing the record 105 million square feet announced for closure in all of 2017.

In the end, we could shatter the all-time record that was established just last year by 20 or 30 million square feet.

At moments such as this, the phrase “retail apocalypse” doesn’t really seem to fit the gravity of what is actually taking place.

And unfortunately for the retail industry, it doesn’t appear that this crisis is going to end any time soon.  Here is more from Bloomberg…

And with shifts to internet shopping and retailer debt woes continuing, there’s no indication the shakeout will end anytime soon. “A huge amount of retail real estate in the U.S. is going to meet its demise,” says James Corl, managing director and head of real estate at private equity firm Siguler Guff & Co. Property owners will “try to re-let it as a gun range or a church—or it’s going to go back to being a cornfield.”

Will retail real estate be the trigger for the next great debacle on Wall Street?

Some people think so.

A lot of major retail projects are going to go belly up, and somebody is going to be left holding the bag.

And the warning signs are definitely there.  In fact, retail sector debt defaults set a brand new record during the first quarter of 2018…

Financial stress in the retail industry is at a historic high.

Moody’s said in a report on Tuesday that retail sector defaults hit a record high during the first three months of 2018 as the rise of e-commerce and decline of malls continues to eat away at profits.

But the mainstream media is telling us that the U.S. economy is in great shape, and so everything is going to work out okay, right?

Sadly, nothing has changed regarding the long-term trends that are eating away at our economy like a cancer.  Just a few days ago I wrote about a brand new report that found that nearly 51 million U.S. households “can’t afford basics like rent and food”.  The real reason why our retailers are in decline is because the middle class is being systematically destroyed.  Once upon a time the middle class had plenty of discretionary income, but now the middle class is disappearing right in front of our eyes, but most of us are in such a state of denial that we won’t even admit what is happening.

Hopefully as stores continue to close by the hundreds people will start waking up.  The following is a list of just some of the major retailers that are closing stores in 2018…

• Abercrombie & Fitch: 60 more stores are charted to close
• Aerosoles: Only 4 of their 88 stores are definitely remaining open
• American Apparel: They’ve filed for bankruptcy and all their stores have closed (or will soon)
• BCBG: 118 stores have closed
• Bebe: Bebe is history and all 168 stores have closed
• Bon-Ton: They’ve filed for Chapter 11 and will be closing 48 stores.
• The Children’s Place: They plan to close hundreds of stores by 2020 and are going digital.
• CVS: They closed 70 stores but thousands still remain viable.
• Foot Locker: They’re closing 110 underperforming stores shortly.
• Guess: 60 stores will bite the dust this year.
• Gymboree: A whopping 350 stores will close their doors for good this year
• HHGregg: All 220 stores will be closed this year after the company filed for bankruptcy.
• J. Crew: They’ll be closing 50 stores instead of the original 20 they had announced.
• J.C. Penney: They’ve closed 138 stores and plan to turn all the remaining ones into toy stores.
• The Limited: All 250 retail locations have been closed and they’ve gone digital in an effort to remain in business.
• Macy’s: 7 more stores will soon close and more than 5000 employees will be laid off.
• Michael Kors: They’ll close 125 stores this year.
• Payless: They’ll be closing a whopping 800 stores this year after recently filing for bankruptcy.
• Radio Shack: More than 1000 stores have been shut down this year, leaving them with only 70 stores nationwide.
• Rue 21: They’ll be closing 400 stores this year.
• Sears/Kmart: They’ve closed over 300 locations.
• ToysRUs: They’ve filed for bankruptcy but at this point, have not announced store closures, and have in fact, stated their stores will remain open.
• Wet Seal: This place is history – all 171 stores will soon be closed.

A lot of people are blaming online retailers such as Amazon.com for the decline of brick and mortar stores, and without a doubt online sales are rising, but they still account for less than 10 percent of the entire retail industry.

And it isn’t just retailers that are closing locations.

Personally, I was greatly saddened when it was announced that Subway was planning on shutting down 500 locations in the United States…

Feeling the need to improve its store fleet amid intense competition in the sandwich industry, Subway is planning to close 500 U.S. locations this year, according to Bloomberg News.

Subway restaurants are small in size, but ubiquitous. The chain is the largest in the U.S. by store count of any quick-service chain with nearly 26,000 locations, well above the 14,000 McDonald’s (mcd, +0.29%) restaurants in this country. This has long been a point of pride for the company.

I have always been a big fan of Subway, and if they ever closed my hometown location I would be seriously distressed.

And banks are closing locations at an astounding rate as well.  In fact, from June 2016 to June 2017 the number of bank branches in the United States fell by more than 1,700.

That was the biggest decline that we have ever seen.

If the U.S. economy really was in good shape, none of this would be taking place.  Something really big is happening, and what we have seen so far is just the very small tip of a very large iceberg.