If our little neighborhood 4th of July parade had a grand marshal, I’d urge organizers to invite Edward G. Barton, 36, of Joliet to take the ceremonial baton.

Barton’s neighborhood, like mine, suffers from the presence of fireworks idiots: celebrators of the tradition I call “booms,” who light off their illegal pyrotechnics almost daily for up to several weeks before Independence Day, the only evening when it’s arguably appropriate.

So, police said, early June 21, Barton walked over to the bedroom window of a neighboring fireworks idiot who allegedly kept him awake much of Saturday night and fired three rounds from a 12-gauge shotgun into the ground.

Police charged him with reckless discharge of a firearm and possessing firearms without a FOID card. But I, along with 77 percent of respondents to Change of Subject click survey, charge him with being a hero.

His act wasn’t vigilantism. It was the administration of a heaping dose of the alleged idiot’s own medicine.

Down with the Idiocracy. Long live the Republic. And God Bless America.

I wish all of you a safe, happy, Fourth of July weekend.

Christopher E. Hill
Editor

“Joe Dirt” (2001) Fireworks Stand Scene
YouTube Video Link

-U.S. President Barack Obama, January 21, 2009, upon signing executive orders relating to ethics guidelines for staff members of his administration

It appears the Obama administration is having a hard time convincing legendary journalist and prominent symbol of the liberal media Helen Thomas, who has been a correspondent for 57 years and has covered every president since JFK, that this is indeed the case these days.

From MyFOX Dallas/Fort Worth yesterday:

During the daily press briefing on Wednesday, some reporters asked whether the White House staged questions at President Obama’s Wednesday Town Hall meeting on health care.

On its Web site, the White House had asked Americans to submit questions to the president via social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The White House says hundreds of entries were received.

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the White House would “screen” submissions — and pick some for the president to answer at his town hall in Virginia. But at least two reporters told Gibbs this amounted to choosing questions, which would just make Obama look good.

“This is an open forum for the public to ask question,” said Chip Reid of CBS News. “But it’s not really open?”

“Based on what?” responded Gibbs.

“Based on the information … on how the audience and the questions are being selected,” said Reid.

“How about this: I promise we will interrupt the AP’s tradition of asking the first question. I’ll let you ask me a question tomorrow on whether you thought the questions at the town hall meeting that the President conducted at Annandale….”

“That’s not his point,” interrupted Helen Thomas, correspondent for Hearst Newspapers. “That’s, that’s not his point. His point is the control from here. We have never had that in the White House. I’m amazed at you people who call for openness and transparency and control.

“You have left open the suggestion that you are pumping the answers,” Thomas continued. “It’s shocking. It’s really shocking.”

“Let’s have this discussion at the conclusion of the town hall meeting,” Gibbs said.

“No, no, no. We are having it now.” claimed Thomas. “It’s a pattern. It’s a pattern. It isn’t the question. It’s a pattern of controlling the press.”

CNS News’ Fred Lucas and Penny Starr added the following:

Following a testy exchange during Wednesday’s briefing with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas told CNSNews.com that not even Richard Nixon tried to control the press the way President Obama is trying to control the press.

“Nixon didn’t try to do that,” Thomas said. “They couldn’t control (the media). They didn’t try.”

“What the hell do they think we are, puppets?” Thomas said. “They’re supposed to stay out of our business. They are our public servants. We pay them.”

What’s next? A fake press conference?

Thomas/White House Exchange
MyFOX Dallas/Fort Worth Video Link

Sources:

“Helen Thomas, Reporter Grill Gibbs”
MyFOX Dallas/Fort Worth, July 2, 2009

“Helen Thomas: Not Even Nixon Tried to Control the Media Like Obama”
Fred Lucas, Penny Starr
CNSNews.com, July 1, 2009

From the Wall Street Journal’s Alex Frangos today:

In a sign of how severe the employment downturn is getting, even schoolteachers, an occupation once viewed as recession proof, are feeling the pain.

Education jobs grew steadily in recent years amid rising enrollment and government efforts to reduce class sizes. Now the increase in teaching positions has leveled off as school districts struggle with budget pressures. The demographic bulge caused by children of baby boomers — the so-called echo boom — has also begun to wane.

Los Angeles Unified School District laid off 2,500 teachers this spring. Broward County, Fla., Ms. Frommer’s district, cut 400 school jobs. Rochester, N.Y., laid off 300 teachers.

Other districts have avoided cuts by negotiating pay reductions and enacting furloughs and hiring freezes. In June, education jobs actually ticked up 0.5% nationally to just under 3.1 million on a seasonally adjusted basis. But the number of education-related jobs has declined in six of the past 12 months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That contrasts with annual growth of about 3% over the past 15 years in the education field. In the past year, education jobs have grown at about half that rate. Most in demand are teachers in math, science and special education. College instructors have also been in high demand.

Many of the layoffs came in June as teachers prepared to say goodbye to their students for summer. Union and state rules require schools to give teachers notice before the end of the school year if their jobs won’t be there in the fall.

Frangos added that younger instructors have been the ones getting most of the pink slips:

Because contracts often require that those with the least seniority be laid off first, the brunt of lost jobs has been borne by younger teachers.

Think the news of school layoffs are deterring young adults from trying to enter the teaching field? Think again. Frangos noted:

Despite headlines about teacher layoffs, more young people are going back to school to obtain their teaching certificates.

I wish aspiring teachers the best of luck, as it sounds like they’ll need it.

Source:

“Even ‘Recession Proof’ Schoolteachers Feel Pinch of Employment Downturn”
Alex Frangos
Wall Street Journal, July 3, 2009

Seven banks were closed by regulators on Thursday, including six in Illinois, bringing the total for 2009 to 52 as the U.S. banking system remains under pressure from rising unemployment and record foreclosures.

The John Warner Bank, in Clinton, Ill., was closed by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was appointed receiver. The FDIC then sold the bank’s deposits and most of its assets to State Bank of Lincoln, in Lincoln, Ill.

The same Illinois regulator also shut the First State Bank of Winchester, in Winchester, Ill., and appointed the FDIC receiver. The federal agency said it then sold the bank’s deposits and most of its assets to the First National Bank of Beardstown, in Beardstown, Ill.

Rock River Bank, in Oregon, Ill., was also closed and the FDIC appointed receiver. The regulator sold the bank’s deposits and most of its assets to the Harvard State Bank, in Harvard, Ill.

Elizabeth, Ill.-based Elizabeth State Bank was also later closed, with Galena, Ill.-based Galena State Bank and Trust assuming the failed bank’s deposits, the FDIC said. Rounding out the list of Illinois bank failures on Thursday were Danville-based First National Bank, and Worth-based Founders Bank.

The lone bank failure for the day not located in Illinois was Dallas-based Millennium State Bank, the federal regulator said. Irving, Tex.-based State Bank of Texas has agreed to assume the failed bank’s deposits…

On Thursday, the FDIC estimated that the seven bank failures will cost its deposit-insurance fund a total of roughly $314.3 million.

Source:

“Seven banks bring 2009 U.S. failures total to 52”
Alistair Barr, John Letzing
MarketWatch, July 2, 2009

Suresh Tendulkar, economic adviser to Indian’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, is urging the government to diversify its foreign exchange reserves and hold fewer dollars, he said today.

“The major part of Indian reserves are in dollars — that is something that’s a problem for us,” Tendulkar said in an interview in Aix-en-Provence, France today.

He also said that world currencies need to adjust to reflect trade imbalances.

India’s neighbor, China, also continues to exert pressure on the U.S. currency. From the staff over at the Business Intelligence Middle East website today:

China requested that a new global currency be discussed at next week’s G8 meeting in Italy. The news sent the dollar into a downward spiral and the price of gold rallied, confirming its status as a currency hedge.

Wednesday’s sharp rebound in Gold Prices to US$945 faded overnight after a Beijing official refuted claims that China wanted discuss a new global reserve currency at next week’s G8 meeting of political leaders in L’Aquila, Italy…

Specifically, the People’s Bank of China said the IMF should manage part of members’ foreign-exchange reserves.

“To prevent the deficiencies in the main reserve currency, there’s a need to create a new currency that’s delinked from the economies of the issuers,” the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said in a review of the economy in 2008 released today. In March, the PBOC had urged the IMF to expand operations of its Special Drawing Rights currency (SDRs) and move toward a “super-sovereign reserve currency.”

The PBOC statement comes after a top Communist Party research chief said that China should buy gold and US real estate rather than Treasurys.

Former Chinese Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan highlighted the nation’s concern at the risks posed by a global financial system dominated by the dollar, urging more oversight of countries issuing reserve currencies.

“There should be a system to maintain the stability of the major reserve currencies,” said Zeng, the head of a research center under the government’s top economic planning agency. Fiscal and current-account deficits must be supervised as “your currency is likely to become my problem,” he said in a speech in Beijing today.

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The Russians haven’t kept quiet on the issue either. Bloomberg’s Mark Deen and Isabelle Mas wrote this afternoon:

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has repeatedly called for creating a mix of regional reserve currencies as part of the drive to address the global financial crisis, while questioning the dollar’s future as a global reserve currency. Russia’s proposals for the Group of 20 major developed and developing nations summit in London in April included the creation of a supranational currency.

“We will resume” talks on the supranational currency proposal at the G-8 summit in L’Aquila on July 8-10, Medvedev aide Sergei Prikhodko told reporters in Moscow today.

Sources:

“India’s Tendulkar Says Govt Should Diversify Forex Reserves”
Mark Deen
Bloomberg, July 3, 2009

“Gold’s investment credentials boosted by China’s quest for new global currency”
MI-ME Staff
Business Intelligence Middle East, July 3, 2009

“India Joins Russia, China in Questioning U.S. Dollar Dominance”
Mark Deen, Isabelle Mas
Bloomberg, July 3, 2009

-St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 23, 2009

“Option ARMs reset threatens housing rebound”

-Seattle Times, June 27, 2009

“Housing rebound continues, barely”

CNN Money.com, July 1, 2009

From headlines like these, I apparently slept through the U.S. housing bottom. Then again, maybe not. From Reuters today:

U.S. housing prices will fall by a double-digit percentage from already beaten-down levels, resulting in an overall 40 percent plunge by the time foreclosures peak in the second half of 2010, Barclays Capital economist Michelle Meyer said.

Meyer issued her forecast two days after the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Indexes showed for April an 18.1 percent year-to-year decline, compared with 18.7 percent in March, in the rate of home price declines in 20 major U.S. metropolitan areas.

The indexes have tracked the prices of U.S. single-family homes since 1987.

“While the early signs of improvement are in place for housing, the market will likely remain out of balance for some time, given the flood of foreclosures,” Meyer wrote.

“Home prices are likely to continue to fall, albeit at a slowing pace, even after the economy technically emerges from the recession.” Home prices have fallen 32.6 percent from their peak three years ago, S&P/Case-Shiller said.

On that basis, they would need to fall another 11 percent for an overall 40 percent peak-to-trough decline. Further declines could imperil metropolitan areas that have yet to experience the worst of the nation’s housing slump.

According to S&P/Case-Shiller, New York was the only major market to have above-average, month-over-month housing price declines in both March and April and also have a below-average decline for the year ended in April.

Home prices in that market fell 12.5 percent from a year earlier. The Denver area had the smallest drop, 4.9 percent.

Bloomberg’s Oshrat Carmiel talked more about the Manhattan residential real estate market today. Carmiel wrote:

Manhattan apartment prices dropped for the first time since 2002 in the second quarter as the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Bear Stearns Cos. caught up to property owners in the nation’s most expensive urban market.

The median price fell 18.5 percent from a year earlier to $835,700, New York appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and broker Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate said today. The number of sales plunged by half, the most since Miller Samuel began keeping data in 1989.

“The standstill that existed after Lehman Brothers has been broken, and it was the sellers that cried uncle,” Pamela Liebman, chief executive officer of New York-based property broker the Corcoran Group, said in an interview.

Values are falling broadly in Manhattan for the first time in the almost four-year U.S. housing recession, with declines now seen in co-operatives and condominiums of every size and price. Private-sector employment in the city dropped by 91,200 jobs, or 2.8 percent, in the 12 months through May as Wall Street losses and asset writedowns topped $1.4 trillion.

The price of studio apartments declined 16 percent from a year ago to a median of $405,000, according to Miller Samuel. One-bedrooms dropped 17 percent to $650,000 and two-bedrooms fell 23 percent to $1.27 million. Three-bedroom units fell 37 percent to $2.35 million and four-bedrooms plummeted 47 percent to a median of $3.92 million.

Wake me when the housing bottom arrives, please.

Sources:

“US Home Prices Seen Falling 40% Overall: Analyst”
Reuters, July 2, 2009

“Manhattan Apartment Prices Drop as Lehman Hits Home (Update1)”
Oshrat Carmiel
Bloomberg, July 2, 2009

From CNBC feed out of Chicago this past Monday (2 minutes in):

SecretsOfTraders.com’s Larry Levin: This market continues to be propped-up by government intervention, and manipulation, and, unfortunately, as that continues to happen, I think this market can go higher. The government’s been doing a good job of keeping it that way no matter what the real underlying current is, unfortunately…

You’re gonna have to… right on Obama and his staff as basically trying to prop this market up on a daily basis. They’re doing a good job…

But it really is a situation where, every single day, we have some kind of backstop from the government. I mean, these markets are not free markets anymore. You know, this whole year has been absolutely ridiculous…

CNBC’s Rick Santelli: Well, I think Larry’s doing a darn good job. I tend to agree with most of what he’s saying…

-Bill Moyers, American journalist, public commentator, and former White House Press Secretary in the Lyndon B. Johnson Administration. 1934- )

Say it ain’t so, WaPo!

From Mike Allen and Michael Calderone of the political news site POLITICO this morning:

Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth said today she was canceling plans for an exclusive “salon” at her home where for as much as $250,000, the Post offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record access to “those powerful few” — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and even the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff.”

With the Post newsroom in an uproar after POLITICO reported the solicitation, Weymouth said in an email to the staff that “a flier went out that was prepared by the Marketing department and was never vetted by me or by the newsroom. Had it been, the flier would have been immediately killed, because it completely misrepresented what we were trying to do.”

Weymouth said the paper had planned a series of dinners with participation from the newsroom “but with parameters such that we did not in any way compromise our integrity. Sponsorship of events, like advertising in the newspaper, must be at arm’s length and cannot imply control over the content or access to our journalists. At this juncture, we will not be holding the planned July dinner and we will not hold salon dinners involving the newsroom…”

$250,000? I wonder how much a trip to the salon’s VIP Room would have cost?

Source:

“WaPo cancels lobbyist event amid uproar”
Mike Allen, Michael Calderone
POLITICO, July 2, 2009

America’s labor force has been hit hard by this recession. Especially the guys. From Reuters’ Ed Stoddard earlier in the week:

One statistic that stands out in America’s recession-stung economy is the unemployment rate for adult men: in April for the second month in a row it surged ahead of the national average to 9.4 percent versus 8.9 percent for all workers. The jobless rate for adult women was 7.1 percent.

The latest numbers don’t show much improvement in the unemployment rate gap between men and women. From MarketWatch’s Andrea Coombes today:

The current recession is hitting workers in just about every industry, but men are taking a much bigger hit than women.

The 2.3 percentage-point gap between men’s June unemployment rate of 10.6% and women’s 8.3% rate is near the highest it’s ever been since records started being kept in 1948. The gap first hit 2 percentage points in March this year and the 2.5 percentage-point gap in May was the highest ever.

The overall unemployment rate rose to 9.5% in June, from 9.4% in May. The economy lost a higher-than-expected 467,000 jobs in June.

“The gap between female and male unemployment has never been as large as it is now,” said Sophia Koropeckyj, an economist with Moody’s Economy.com.

It’s not hard to see why. Two male-dominated industries — construction and manufacturing — account for about half of the some 6 million jobs lost since the recession started in December 2007 and both industries started shedding jobs before that.

“Every industry is contracting, but these industries have taken the brunt,” Koropeckyj said. Given that men account for 87% of workers in manufacturing and 71% in construction, it’s not surprising that men’s unemployment rate is rocketing past women’s rate.

The only two private-sector industries to show a net increase in jobs from the start of the recession through May are health care and education — and women workers are highly concentrated in both.

Health care logged a net gain of about 542,000 jobs from December 2007 through May, and private education showed a net gain of about 102,000 jobs in that period.

Eighty-one percent of health-care workers are women, and 61% of workers in private education are women, Koropeckyj said. Also, government has shown a net job gain of 259,000 in that period, and 57% of government workers are women.

Frank Sinatra, “Luck Be A Lady” (1966)
YouTube Video Link

Source:

“Recession hits men harder”
Andrea Coombes
MarketWatch, July 2, 2009

You bet.

This morning, Phil Izzo of the Wall Street Journal’s “Real Time Economics” blog wrote:

As job losses accelerated in June, the unemployment rate ticked up 0.1 percentage point to 9.5%, the highest level since August 1983.

But another more comprehensive gauge of unemployment also continued to tick up. The government’s broader measure, known as the “U-6″ for its data classification, hit 16.5% in June, 0.1 percentage point higher than March.

The comprehensive measure of labor underutilization accounts for people who have stopped looking for work or who can’t find full-time jobs. The index had posted a 0.6 percentage point jump in May. The pace of increase has begun to mirror the rise in the headline rate after soaring at higher pace earlier this year, possibly signaling that more workers are starting to look for jobs again.

Though the pace may be moderating, the figure still is the highest since the Labor Department started this particular data series in 1994. It’s also above a discontinued and even broader measure that hit 15% in late 1982, when the official unemployment rate was 10.8%. (That data series goes back to the 1970s.)

Painting an even bleaker picture, Izzo added:

Many forecasters expect the official unemployment rate to top 10% by the end of this year. The two indexes have begun to move closer in tandem as improving sentiment amid widespread talk of “green shoots” of recovery were bringing job seekers back to the market. However, this month that trend appears to be reversing as the participation rate declined.

Meanwhile, the number of long-term unemployed continues to rise, with 4,381,000 out of work for over 27 weeks, up from 3,948,000 last month. If those job seekers continue to be discouraged and stop looking for work they won’t be counted in the headline unemployment number. However, the broader jobless rate would move higher, and could easily top 18%. For people in this group, comparisons to the Great Depression (when 25% of Americans were out of work) may not look so wild even if overall economic activity is holding up better.

Source:

“Broader Unemployment Rate Hit 16.5% in June”
Phil Izzo
Wall Street Journal (Real Time Economics Blog), July 2, 2009

-ColoradoBIZ, July 1, 2006

“The stage is set for Nashville hotel boom as indicators favor expansion”

-Nashville Business Journal, January 19, 2007

“In Las Vegas, Too Many Hotels Are Never Enough”

-New York Times, April 24, 2007

“NYC Hotel Boom Could Help Ease Room Shortage”

-CBS 2 (New York City), December 16, 2007

“Tulsa enjoys hotel boom”

-The Journal Record (Oklahoma City), January 2, 2008

From Bloomberg’s Nadja Brandt and Dan Levy today:

As many as one in five U.S. hotel loans may default through 2010 as the recession means companies are spending less on travel and perks, according to University of California economist Kenneth Rosen.

The value of hotel properties in default or foreclosure almost doubled to $17.3 billion in the second quarter through June 24 from $9 billion at the end of the first quarter, data compiled by Real Capital Analytics Inc. show. The New York-based research firm, which began tracking distressed commercial property in November, expects hotel defaults to increase by as much as $2 billion this quarter, said analyst Jessica Ruderman.

“Hotels without question will have the highest foreclosure rate of any commercial real estate sector,” said Rosen, who runs a real estate hedge fund with $310 million in assets and is chairman of the University of California’s Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics in Berkeley.

Hotel owners are defaulting as room rates and property values tumble and the securitized mortgage market that fueled an 88 percent gain in U.S. commercial prices from 2001 to late 2008 is dormant.

Luxury hotel revenue fell 28 percent in April from a year earlier and has dropped for 12 straight months, according to Smith Travel Research Inc. in Hendersonville, Tennessee. The 29 percent decline in March was the biggest since October 2001.

A third of the $8.6 billion in securities backed by hotel loans due in 2010 are at risk of defaulting, data compiled by credit-rating firm Realpoint LLC in Horsham, Pennsylvania, show.

Guerrilla marketing?

Source:

“Hotel Loan Defaults Double as Recession Cuts Travel (Update2)”
Nadja Brandt, Dan Levy
Bloomberg, July 1, 2009

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Wednesday declared a fiscal emergency for the government of the most populous U.S. state to force lawmakers into a special session to tackle a $24.3 billion state budget gap.

Lawmakers have failed to agree on a spending plan that balances the state’s budget for its new fiscal year, which began early Wednesday morning, and budget talks are at an impasse.

“Though the legislature failed to solve our budget problem yesterday, rest assured that solving the entire deficit remains my first and only priority, and I will not rest until we get it done. I will not be a part of pushing this crisis down the road — the road stops here,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement.

IOU. One for you. And one for you…

The Governator argues with lawmakers

Source:

“Schwarzenegger Declares California In Fiscal Emergency”
Reuters, July 1, 2009

They took it away from me, probably because I wasn’t spending as much as they wanted me to, and when I did rack up a balance, I paid it off monthly.

Not the kind of customer they were looking for.

From Reuters’ Hezron Selvi this morning:

Citigroup Inc has increased interest rates on up to 15 million U.S. credit card accounts just months before curbs on such rises come into effect, the Financial Times reported citing people close to the situation.

Citigroup had upped rates on 13 million to 15 million credit cards it co-brands with retailers such as Sears, the paper said.

In a statement, Citigroup said “We have adjusted pricing and card terms for some customers as part of our regular account reviews. This is an ongoing process to ensure we offer terms, interest rates, credit lines and products based on individual needs and risk profiles.”

“These changes also reflect the dramatically higher cost of doing business in our industry as we work to preserve the broad availability of credit,” Citigroup told the paper.

Well, that’s one way of helping the American consumer get back on its feet…

Source:

“Citi raises rates on millions of credit cards: report”
Hezron Selvi
Reuters, July 1, 2009

When do you know that the economy is on the mend?

When the wealthy start spending again. And the rich aren’t expected to start digging into their Birkin bags anytime soon.

The luxury market, historically resilient to economic downturns, is forecast to drop an unprecedented 10 percent this year, according to a June report from Bain & Co. The Boston-based firm predicts purveyors of luxury goods won’t experience a full recovery until 2012.

Keeping an eye on the spending of the rich is a favorite American pastime. But it is also key to the economic recovery, said Ron Kurtz, president of the American Affluence Research Center.

The richest 10 percent of U.S. households account for as much as 50 percent of consumer spending, according to the center’s calculations, based on Federal Reserve Board data. Consumer spending, in turn, accounts for about 70 percent of gross domestic product.

“The affluent market is a leading indicator of what’s to come,” said Kurtz. “Given their losses in the value of their homes, investment and savings that they have experienced over the past two years, the affluent are likely to be conservative spenders until these losses have been largely recovered.”

Some ask if there is something else causing rich Americans to pull back on spending. Jones wrote:

One school of thought is the notion that well-heeled shoppers are holding back because they are self-conscious about their wealth in the midst of a deep recession, a trend pundits label “luxury shame.”

The American Affluence Research Center found that 90 percent of the most affluent households have always avoided ostentatious consumption and are “careful spenders and aggressive savers.” Their spending habits aren’t expected to change anytime soon.

The center’s spring 2009 survey found that 68 percent of the respondents have no plans to make any of the following major expenditures in the next 12 months: a car, cruise, boat, new home, vacation home or a home remodel project. That is a record high, as well as a marked jump from 53 percent in spring 2008 and 36 percent in spring 2005.

While the recession was well under way in 2008, luxury spending held up until the financial markets collapsed last fall.

As a result, writes Jones:

Now, glitzy shopping streets from Madison Avenue to Rodeo Drive to Oak Street are dotted with empty storefronts and sale signs…

Source:

“Luxury spending likely to drop 10 percent for 2009”
Sandra M. Jones
Chicago Tribune, June 21, 2009