The State of the Mall

Fellow Americans, the State of the Mall is declining. Though the movie theatre still has traffic and the three anchor stores remain open, the two major restaurants are closed. Larger stores are liquidating their merchandise with banners of “Going Out of Business” and of the 90 smaller stores between the anchors, 28 are now closed leaving 62 stores still open, of which 11 are cheesier than the stores we used to have. It’s amazing that 5 of the 51 better quality stores sell cell phones, 6 sell various quality-levels of jewelry, and 6 more cut hair, trim nails, and wax eyebrows. Some stores hang up temporary signs in their storefronts. A few more buy rather than sell! They are buying gold. One such store has walls painted a bright gold color, with leather wing back chairs. A man sits at a desk ready to assess the jewelry and trinkets people bring to trade for Federal Reserve Notes (i.e. dollars). There are a few shoppers. But not many people in the stores themselves. Clearly the State of the Mall is sad. It reflects the State of the Economy and the State of the Union. But furthermore, the Mall is in the midst of bankruptcy proceedings. And they are serving eviction notices to tenants on Christmas Eve. This mall opened in 1998. Twelve years seems short for an expensive mall.

So how do we improve the State of the Mall? Stores will be profitable if there are people shopping and spending. People will shop and spend if they feel there is low risk to doing so. People will feel there is low risk to shopping and spending if they have jobs and feel some degree of certainty that they’ll keep their jobs. Who’ll offer these jobs? Stores and other employers will hire employees if they are fairly certain that they will have enough excess income to do so.

So where does the certainty come from? Certainty is the absence of uncertainty and unpredictability. Can we predict whether the health care bill will pass or not? Not really. If it passes, do we know what drain on the economy the new taxes will cause? No, we don’t. Can we guess whether cap and trade legislation will be resurrected? If it is, do we know how much it will impact consumer spending and employment rates? Not even close. Do we know what is next on the President’s agenda? Well we certainly weren’t expecting him to cancel the Constellation Program at NASA or the Missile Defense program at the DoD. We weren’t expecting him to allow Eric Holder to hold a civilian trial for avowed terrorists within one of our cities. We don’t know whether we’ll be attacked by terrorists this year but it seems more likely with three small attacks on our soil in the past year. We don’t know whether the stock market is going to drop again precipitously in the next several months, like it did a year ago. We don’t know when inflation is going to hit or how bad it will be. We don’t know whether Israel and Iran will be the first shot in a third World War. We don’t know how long it will take for the housing market to recover. We don’t know how long unemployment will be so high nor how long it will take for consumers to start spending again. We don’t know what Congress is going to cook up next. The fact is there is too much bad news and too much uncertainty in the system for people to take risks. So the State of the Mall, of our Town Centers, our Economy and our Union will continue to decline until stability and certainty are the norms.

Elections Have Consequences

There are hundreds of small businesses and dozens of large businesses affected by President Obama’s cancellation of the Constellation program this week. (Constellation is the next human spaceflight program under development while Shuttle is flown out.) At one particular small business, the CEO, the manager, and half the staff all voted for Obama in the election for President in November 2008. Now within weeks or months 80% of the employees may not have a contract to charge to. It is highly unlikely that without a revenue stream, these employees will be kept on the payroll. So a dozen engineers will be out of work, and it’s all because elections have consequences. When the People of the Many States elected Barack Obama, who warned us during the primary campaign with Hillary Clinton that he was going to delay Constellation to fund education priorities, the consequence is executive prerogative whether to continue programs or not (subject to Congressional approval). I would love to ask the CEO and the manager if they are happy with their vote. Or if they wish now that McCain was elected. I would love to ask them what they have done or are doing to continue the Constellation program. Have they called or sent letters asking to keep it? Or do they believe so blindly in Obama, that they’ve decided it’s better to lay off all the engineers and close up the business since obviously he knows what is best for us?

Elections have consequences. So we need to pay really close attention before we vote and then monitor actions of elected leaders once we’ve voted them in. We should not just nod in agreement to our elected leaders as they dig the hole into which they bury our existence.