We are heading for a depression or recession.

[live love laugh]

Stores closing or announcing closing in 2026:

IKEA; Saks Off 5th; Neiman Marcus; Macy's (shutting 150 stores): Kroger (Food for Less); 711; Wendy's; Pizza Hut; Apple; Walgreens; CVS; Dollar Tree; Family Dollar; Dollar General; Big Lots; Best Buy; Bed Bath and Beyond; Party City; Footlocker/Kids Foot Locker; Champs Sports; The Gap; Banana Republic; Old Navy; JC Penney's; Nordstroms; Kohls; Burlington; Ross; TJ Maxx; Marshalls; HomeGoods; GameStop; Office Depot/ OfficeMax; Staples; Starbucks; Subway; TGI Friday; Red Lobster; Dennys; IHOP; Buffalo Wild Wings; Chilis; Applebees; Olive Garden; Stanley Black and Decker plant in Connecticut laying off 300 have all so far announced store closures for 2026.

This means thousands and thousands more people will be laid off while consumer spending has dropped for 14 straight months. Consumer spending drives 68% of the economy/GDP.

Please do the best that you can to get your finances in order. Do not spend money!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYIUb1YBMoK/?igsh=Z3d1NzlsamR0dWx6

[Dave Bowman]

1. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a depression. The idiot is an absolute catastrophe.

[Initech]

2. We're definitely heading for Great Depression 2.

The billionaires and Wall Street are stealing all of our money. We don't regulate any business. And the fuckhead in charge certainly isn't helping.

[Johonny]

20. Wall Street is so over valued

It feels like a matter of when, not if. The only question is what topples with it when the correction comes.

[Initech]

23. Of all the sci-fi movies out there, Elysium had the most realistic message of them all.

The rich will get to jet off to their little utopias, while the rest of us will be left to fight for what's left of the scraps. Of course, all of this has been greatly accelerated under Fuckhead 2.0.

[usonian]

3. OK, assuming that SOMEONE is orchestrating this shitshow, WHY?

All I can guess is that it's to cause panic/uprisings, and (of course) trigger emergency powers.

Putin seems to have been fomenting this for a long time, "day one" as we say, back in 2015 or so.

Made my analysis a while back. Might need some fine-tuning, and perhaps a bit more emphasis on "who has the videos?" from the dabauchery of the Trump-Epstein sex, blackmail and money-laundering empire.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220295160

Dictators arise in chaos. He's the "master" of chaos.



or KAOS.

[meadowlander]

17. Why attribute to malice what you can attribute to incompetence?

There's no great global conspiracy, There's just a lot of stupid selfish people looking after number one. The only solutions are:

1. make them be less selfish and stupid (hard) or

2. get together to back strong institutions that expose and disincentivise stupidity and selfishness (easier).

[usonian]

18. A mixture?

Putin, Xi, Kim, Netanyahu, The musical chairs of Hamas ... have exhibited extreme cruelty.

To our great disgrace, Trump is emulating them, but he is incompetent in the extreme.

I really think that people worldwide have to raise the bar, demanding leaders of real merit.

But they are drawn like flies to racisim, xenophobia ... you know the list ... and they get played

I am sure that there have been many wannabe tyrants, but they just didn't have the backing of enough suckers to be played, or like Jim Jones, had a relatively small (but still too large) following.

There are tipping points in these chaotic systems.

I'll skip a philosophical discussion. Buddhism basically says that ignorance is the root cause , but as I noted, it's up to the many to have high standards and thereby to form a block on runaway poisons.

One doesn't take power without some assent, except, I suppose, through extreme force alone, and I don't doubt that the evil operators behind the scenes are contemplating that.

[DFW]

4. It sounds like we should be saying the opposite

IF (big if) you are able to afford it, and your purchases are not frivolous, DO spend money.

The workers whose jobs depend on those stores staying open say thanks! in advance. Pay cash or by check if it’s at all convenient, so that the credit card companies don’t siphon off 4% from what the store really takes in.

For the last 800 years or so, there has been an open air market in our town square, where local farmers, small food merchants, etc. set up three times a week. We buy there when we can. There is even a local baker who attaches a huge multi-level bread-baking oven to a pickup, drives it onto the square, and sells freshly-baked loaves of bread and breakfast rolls right out of the oven. The aroma is seductive (betcha Peppridge Faahm doesn’t remembah that). The people of our small town crowd the market in all kinds of weather. It’s not always cheap, but it IS always fresh, and it keeps the tradition (and the farmers) from dying out.

[live love laugh]

7. If thousands are unemployed how can they spend?

Economic “stimulus” counters collapse but stimulus requires cash.

[Happy Hoosier]

13. Did you miss the part where the poster said "if you can afford it?" NT

[DFW]

14. Thank you

I don't recall urging a second mortgage in order to be able to afford a Big Mac. Like Karl Marx wrote, "from each, according to his ability...."

[live love laugh]

15. Yes I did.

[Blue Dotty]

5. Trump is trashing FEMA - how safe is the FDIC? n/t

[wnylib]

8. I looked up a few of the stores listed.

Last edited Mon May 11, 2026, 10:37 PM - Edit history (1)

Some are restructuring. And not necessarily via chapter 11. 7/11 is closing several low performing stores, but not going out of business. They are planning newer, smaller stores.

Family Dollar is closing several stores for the same reason, but is not going out of business. New, smaller stores again.

Dollar General is closing a small number compared to the other 2 companies and is expanding.
.
The closings will hurt the employees and their families and communities at locations that are shutting down. But those companies are not going out of busines

[dgauss]

26. I got restructured out of a pretty good job

at the age of 60. I had planned for at least another 5 years and those 5 years would have pushed me into a fairly comfortable retirement, with SS and pension ramping up a pleasantly surprising amount in just in those last 5 or so years.

I wasn't happy but could actually appreciate the logic and it had been a great company to work for for about two decades. Now I find myself in the position of hoping they remain profitable because my pension depends on it.

[LymphocyteLover]

9. I was pretty sure that as soon as he came into power and started with the tariffs BS that we would be headed for

some sort of financial crash.

Right now a lot of the economy is propped up on AI and building data centers, seems like.

[ProfessorGAC]

10. Retailers' Planned Closings Is An Indicator...

. .of Depression?
Since when.

[TheProle]

19. Indeed

list from 2021
list from 2022
list from 2023
list from 2024
list from 2025

[ProfessorGAC]

21. And, Biden Was POTUS For 4 Of Those 5 Years

I doubt the OP would have thought those 4 years were indicative of depression.

[Renew Deal]

11. Pretty sure that is misleading

IKEA is not going out of business. Neither are any others in that list.

[Johnny2X2X]

12. Consumer spending is the whole deal

Now it is down and slumping, but I couldn't find evidence it has dropped 14 straight months. But consumer sentiment is at all time lows and that effects spending significantly.

Joe Biden built the best economy for working people in my lifetime (born in early 70s). The media crapped all over it so much that even most democrats don't know how good it was. Joe Biden actually created conditions in the US where the bottom 50% saw more gains than the top 10% both in real dollars and as a % of net worth.

The media hated Biden, think about Jobs Reports
Actual headlines from some of Biden's job reports vs for Trump's latest:

"November Jobs Report Is Another Big Miss For Joe Biden" Added 210,000 jobs November 2021.

"the actual number came in at a dismal 266,000" April of 2021

"Another big miss for Biden on jobs." January of 2022 when we added 466,000 jobs.

Actual headline from Trump's latest job report.

"The Blockbuster jobs report showing we added 115,000 jobs."

That's what we're up against, the corporate media who has an agenda that is anti worker and anti middle class.

[roamer65]

16. In 1930, they thought it was a recession.

Little did they know what was coming.

[BigmanPigman]

22. I asked the same question yesterday on DU....

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100221230092

[GenThePerservering]

24. Starbucks is restructuring, too

they have too many stores and not enough people who want to buy shitty overpriced coffee made from burnt beans.

[SamuelTheThird]

25. You're correct, although your evidence here is weak

People don't want to think about what's coming. Look how little discussion there is here of Iran!

[CanonRay]

27. Great, I just bought a new house

[Groundhawg]

28. I don't think so.

When baby trump stops churning the waters, there will be a huge pent up spending happening.