The woes of our economy

A friend of mine sent me the following email about how our stores are suffering during the present economic crisis. The email is exaggerated, but there is a kernel of truth to it.

For the truth and falsity of this email (for it has both) check here:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/storeclosings.asp

This is what the email sent to me actually says:

"I wanted to give everyone a heads up that if you tend to give gift cards around the holidays, you need to be careful that the cards will not be honored after the holidays.

Stores that are planning to close after Christmas are still selling the cards through the holidays even though the cards will be worthless January 1. There is no law preventing them from doing this. On the contrary, it is referred to as 'Bankruptcy Planning).


Below is a partial list of stores that you need to be cautious about:

Circuit City (filed Chapter 11)
Ann Taylor 117 stores nationwide closing
Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug ,and Catherine's to close 150 stores nationwide
Eddie Bauer to close stores 27 stores and more after January
Cache will close all stores
Talbots closing down specialty stores
J. Jill closing all stores (owned by Talbots) Pacific Sunwear (also owned by Talbots)
GAP closing 85 stores
Footlocker closing 140 stores more to close after January
Wickes Furniture closing down
Levitz closing down remaining stores
Bombay closing remaining stores
Zales closing down 82 stores and 105 after January
Whitehall closing all stores
Piercing Pagoda closing all stores
Disney closing 98 stores and will close more after January.
Home Depot closing 15 stores 1 in NJ ( New Brunswick )
Macys to close 9 stores after January
Linens and Things closing all stores
Movie Galley Closing all stores
Pep Boys Closing 33 stores
Sprint/Nextel closing 133 stores
JC Penney closing a number of stores after January
Ethan Allen closing down 12 stores.
Wilson Leather closing down all stores

Sharper Image closing down all stores
K B Toys closing 356 stores
Loews to close down some stores
Dillard's to close some stores."

Although this is overblown and exaggerated, again there is a good moral here and that is this: Be careful out there folks! Stores that are closing down do not have your interests at heart in the slightest. I'm afraid we are in for a long and miserable time economically.