June 17, 2008
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Is it just me or have you also noticed that there are less cars on the road? Not like a huge chunk less, but less than what you would normally expect. Is the increase of gas prices making that much of a difference, that there are fewer people leaving their homes? People still need to drive to work, so I'm guessing carpooling is at an all time high? Without people going places, there's bound to be less people buying stuff, which doesn't help the currently struggling economy. I guess home entertainment items like video games or movies are reaping the benefits of people finding excuses to rather entertain themselves at home, as opposed to having fun outside.
I've also noticed a more common thread of stores and restaurants closing shop. One of the local super markets that's been around since I could remember, is actually going out of business. Man, times are tough right now for a lot of people. On the flipside, I've also noticed a lot of development going on still. There's even a new shopping mall opening up near where I work, where just about 80% of it's stores are restaurants. So restaurants are doing okay in this economy? I suppose that's one of the last things people are willing to give up to save money for the time being. Later on though, they might have to just stick with home made meals. The economy is really poor right now, and I'm afraid that we may not have even seen the worst of it yet.
Comments (2)
mmm i don't go out enough to notice i guess. i think it's hilarious that today's society is encouraged to become great at their jobs and they feel the need to go out to eat because oh no, they don't know how to cook. to even GET to the restaurants they have to drive and use up gas. silly people.
At almost $5/gal, it's almost at the point where people are changing jobs (or is it losing jobs?) to save on gas. Hell, I've switched to work 15 minutes from home now (like 5 minutes from your house). I do know that there's been a lot of job loss lately. Specifically from the construction sector. You may still see development happening, but it's at a slower pace there are less workers working on the same buildings (the worst I've seen is two guys working on a huge building for several months).
The restaurant thing is strange though. Sit down restaurants are usually the first thing people cut out. Fast food start to proliferate though because a lot of times fast food is cheaper than food at home (to the detriment of your health).
A real worry is whether we'll actually go into depression territory. The really bad loans of 2006-2007 haven't reset yet. We'll see full neighborhoods abandoned when that happens (actually it's already started in some of the inland empire). All that will contribute to further tightening on spending and of course drag the economy further down.
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