The Real War on X-Mess

Below: Start of a bad Holiday Sales SeasonEven purists must admit the stores have been decorated for wks. now, but they still hold that "The Holidays" don't start until Thanksgiving. IF THE "HOLIDAYS" START AT ALL THIS YR.! 

Piles of jewelry, clothing and electric drills are bypassing store shelves and heading straight to liquidators by the caseload as stores try to save as much cash as they can. Major department stores and mall-based chains have cut prices up to 70 percent to move out mounds of excess inventory stuck in the pipeline since the financial crisis hit in September and people snapped their wallets shut. Big moves of merchandise happen every year — but usually after Christmas. This year stores are desperate to shed inventory even before Thanksgiving. "The holiday season is over. The reason? It just never got started," said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD Group, a market research firm. [...] At the company's Liquidation.com, which auctions surplus goods offered by stores and manufacturers to dollar stores and small businesses that sell on eBay, the number of auctions scheduled for the Thanksgiving weekend has soared to 2,100 — eight times more than last Thanksgiving, said chief executive Bill Angrick. In other words, what normally happens after Christmas is taking place this weekend, he said."This is about survival. This is not about muddling through the holiday season," Angrick said.

The party's over. (Can schadenfreude be sung?)