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Annie, Don't Get Your Gun
Rather, the poor results for the legal gun runners provide yet another piece of evidence that the discretionary aspirational consumer is pooped. Despite what you might hear during Republican primary debates, very few people actually need a shotgun or a hunting weapon to get through the winter. Nowadays, most Americans buy fresh meat at stores like Kroger and rely on services like ADT to ward off hostile intruders. And well-made guns, which aren't cheap, last for several years. They don't need to be replaced every fall.
Cabela's and Gander Mountain stores are found in parts of the country where housing and job markets haven't been ravaged by subprime mortgages gone bad. And they're not in places where spending on discretionary goods is dependent on Wall Street bonuses. We've said it before, and we'll say it again: The subprime debacle is a symptom of the nation's economic challenges rather than a cause of them. Slowing growth, stagnant incomes, and rising inflation are taking a toll on the ability and desire of American consumers—at all income levels below plutocrat—to spend. That's why these companies' gruesome stock charts look like ski slopes. And that's why the stock of Vail Resorts, the leading player in another expensive, purely discretionary leisure pursuit, is off 30 percent since October.
© 2007
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Member Comments
Posted By: horrified @ 12/30/2007 8:28:10 PM
Comment: good riddance to bad rubbish! There's nothing good about guns. we need to get rid of them all, and the sick hunters can all go off in the woods together. I'm glad that cabellas is going out of business... its about time america lost its lust for guns.
boycott all Japanese products until they stop hunting whales!
Hantman
Posted By: horrified @ 12/30/2007 8:24:19 PM
Comment: well, let us all hope that this is in fact the swansong of america's love affair with the gun. guns are sick, and all purposes gun-related are equally sick. good riddance to bad rubbish. cabela's, go away.
joshua hantman
Posted By: ParkerCounty @ 12/24/2007 2:53:16 PM
Comment: D. Gross is an "editor". Perhaps other"clueless editors" missed the part about "fishers" Could be, daddy never took him hunting or fishing, in spite of excellent opportunities near East Lansing. In the NY area, deer are becoming pests since there are neither two nor four-legged predators to control their numbers.
Sales of hunting and fishing gear are down because kids aren't being taught to hunt and fish.