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The retail apocalypse was worse than we thought, but there's a silver lining
A storefront sits vacant, in Austin, Minn., in April 2018. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Melina Mara
Andrew Van Dam, The Washington Post
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Until last week, it seemed as though U.S. retail employment had recovered from its apocalypse - the wave of store closures headlined by last year's implosion of Toys R Us - and was nearing another record high.
Then came the most recent jobs report.
Upon further review, the Labor Department revealed in its annual revisions, there were about 138,000 fewer retail industry jobs in 2018 than previously thought.
We now know American retail peaked in January 2017. Instead of adding about 40,000 jobs over the past two years, as we had believed, the retail sector lost about 105,000 jobs. It's the biggest revision in any industry this year.
The initial jobs numbers are based on some of the biggest and most reliable surveys in the world, but even those must be adjusted each year based on slow-to-arrive data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, a Labor Department program that counts almost every business in the country.
Critics on both sides of the aisle have questioned the accuracy of the oft-revised jobs data. Ahu Yildirmaz, research chief at the private payroll processor ADP, ruled out any suggestion that the numbers are systematically erroneous or manipulated for political reasons.
"All surveys, all the [Labor Department] reports have a very strong methodology behind them," Yildirmaz said. ADP data show a similar trend. Revisions, which have happened across administrations and decades, are a normal part of the process, she said.
Said John Stewart, a Labor Department economist: "There's no bias in our benchmark process or in our estimation process."
Retail's decline over the past two years can be blamed on struggling department stores such as Sears, Macy's and J.C. Penney, as well as declines in warehouse clubs, office-supply stores, clothing stores and electronics retailers, said Mitch Nolen, a retail expert whose tweet inspired this article.
Michael Mandel of the Progressive Policy Institute said: "Department stores have taken a big hit over the last 10 years, but a lot of that seems to be a big shift within brick and mortar." It's a "shift from Macy's to Walmart," he said.
Using categories similar to those Mandel developed, we see that the approximately 119,000 jobs lost by brick-and-mortar retailers over the past two years are dwarfed by a gain of 311,000 jobs in Internet-commerce-related industries. Those include including online retailers, delivery drivers and couriers, and warehouse workers.
Those jobs are the modern equivalent of point-of-sale retail, Mandel said. And they tend to pay more than jobs in grocery stores, clothing stores, gas stations, department stores and other retail categories.
A separate Labor Department release shows that retailers were laying off employees at precisely the same rate as other businesses in November, the most recent month for which data are available. That isn't what you'd expect from an industry in the throes of an apocalypse.
Declining retail employment may also be the result of a thriving economy, said Harris Eppsteiner, a Harvard PhD candidate who was on the staff of President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers.
Eppsteiner argues that retail employment may be falling because workers are fleeing for jobs with better pay and benefits in other industries. Retailers have raised wages 4.9 percent in the past year - above a national average of 3.2 percent - in an effort to stem an employee exodus.
"Retail jobs aren't great jobs," Eppsteiner said. "We're at a stage in the expansion where workers have a lot of bargaining power."
It's a home seller's market in eastern Connecticut
New stats show that the number of days on the market is down and the median price is up for single-family homes.
Connecticut loses 1,400 jobs in June, driven by drops in local government
Two economic analysts referred to the latest Connecticut Department of Labor numbers as "abysmal" and "troubling."
Regulators: New casino not cheating gamblers out of winnings
Massachusetts gambling regulators say their preliminary investigation shows the new Encore Boston Harbor casino isn't cheating gamblers out of their winnings as a class action lawsuit claims
Developer: Regulatory delay could put Mass. wind farm in jeopardy
The company planning a major wind farm off the Massachusetts coast is warning the project could be in jeopardy if a federal environmental review stretches on much longer


God created us as sexual beings; therefore, we use God's standard as the foundation for addressing sexual behavior in the Bethel covenant. We acknowledge that these standards are sometimes violated by community members and that the result may be a pregnancy occurring outside of a committed, marital relationship. While premarital sexual activity may be subject to the disciplinary process, Bethel's response to pregnancy is to provide support and resources for the students involved. Both the male and female students involved in a pregnancy may remain enrolled at Bethel during and after the pregnancy. Our hope is that we can minister grace to those who are repentant, hold them accountable for future sexual behavior, and restore them to the community. A more complete copy of our guidelines for responding to pregnancies at Bethel is available from the Office of Student Life.


Make sure you get to the bottom of this post. If you're thinking of start a new small business, or have one, there are some really good tools I reference in here that'd make your life easier.
So here goes – a bit of a run down on what I achieved in my first month of starting my new small business – The Winery Marketer.
….on WordPress, which was pretty straightforward for me, until I had to plugin memberships and digital products. That added new issues like caching problems and the need to set up other new services like payment gateways. Which then meant, I had to become a payment gateway specialist in hours as well. Its relentless isn't it!
I created lead magnets for the website.
I've added a plug in – Sumome – to allow me to set up have pop up calls to action in relevant locations around the site. Building a subscriber database is at the core of my growth strategy, so I had to have this functionality. Once that was set up, I needed to prep some premium content someone could download, in exchange for their email address. Check out one of the downloads I designed here (yep – I was a 'graphic designer for the afternoon' as well).
… back dated with transactions and full balance and reconciled. I chose Quickbooks online. I did first sign up for Reckon One, but it just felt like too 'new' a product too quick. So far, I've been super impressed with my choice in Quickbooks.
We're away! Yep – that's March already in the black (or green in this case)!
….for the agency I used to work for – One Rabbit. I'm SO grateful to the guys for considering me – this has been brilliant. Its kept me working with commercial ROI in mind, and of course it's given me a soft landing and has taken some of the perceived pressure off on revenue. Not that that has stopped me from going at a million miles an hour!
I've finished setting up Facebook.
Its ready to go. Not much of an audience there at the moment, but I want to get more of my content together on the site and improve my visibility on Instagram before starting to target ideal prospects on Facebook. Find it here.
…and I've (with help from my beautiful wife) kicked off our audience acquisition strategy. We've just passed the 100 follower mark on day four. A lot of them are the target – small to medium wineries. I've been very strategic in how I've approached Instagram, and I think it's helping the pages 'stickiness' with profile viewers converting to followers.
Set up Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics to kick off indexing the site and structuring my content to target my priority keywords.
Wow. When I look at what I achieved in month I, I probably shouldn't be so hard on myself!


A creative haven in the heart of Hälsingland, Sweden.
Sign up for FX makeup and mask making workshops at Helsinglight FX Makeup Academy in Sweden.
Learn the art of designing, sculpting, mold making, silicone casting, airbrushing, life casting and much more!
If you have got any requests for other special effects workshops than the ones listed below, feel free to email your requests!
TBD - More info coming soon! If you're interested in this workshop contact us and we'll send you information as soon as the workshop is released!
TBD - More info soon! If you're interested in this workshop contact us and we'll send you information as soon as the workshop is released!
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Helsinglight is a creative haven in Vattlång, Hälsingland, mid north of Sweden. A beautiful old school built in 1920 and now owned and run by creative concept artists Petra Shara Stoor and Fredrik Fernlund. A creative nest for our SFX makeup & mask workshops, as well as a place where art exhibitions, music nights, weddings, etc will be organised.


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The Missing Blogs: The Ghost Ship of Lonnrotinkatu: The Catabolism of the World Peace Council – Part 2
I don't remember her name (standing in the back row, right) but she was an investigative reporter from (what was then) the Soviet newspaper Konsomolskaya Pravda, visiting us in Helsinki I think in April, 1990. She wrote a two part series on corruption in the World Peace Council. I am told that it triggered an investiation by the Congress of Peoples' Deputies. Daughters Molly and Abbie in front row. At our home, Kaivoksela, Finland
(Note: The second two parts of this series, first written in 1992 and published on this blog somewhere around 2008-9 have disappeared, somehow were purged. Other than the fact that I did not remove them, I have no idea who, how or why they were eliminated). Well, I do have an idea but that is all it is and as I will probably never be able to prove it, why waste time even speculating.
What I find interesting is that anyone/organization would eliminate an article about events that happened more than thirty years ago to an organization going through its death throws then, nothing more than a footnote on the Cold War, the last Cold War, that is
So… I am reposting.)
Following the Money Trail at the World Peace Council
Part II of Rob Prince's behind-the-scenes look at the World Peace Council's dealings in the aftermath of the Soviet Union's dissolution. See also Part I, May 1992 and Part III, August 2011
Rob Prince – 1992-11-01
It is highly unlikely that when he visited Helsinki from Moscow in September of 1991, Oleg Kharkhardin, a Soviet Peace Committee (SPC) representative, did so to pick mushrooms.
If he arrived in the Finnish capital at a fine time weatherwise, it was a curious one politically. The Soviet Union had entered a transition period, just after the August 20 abortive coup attempt. Its demise would would follow only 2 few months later.
Shortly before, at about the time that Kharkhardin re-emerged into a position of power; the SPC had somehow engineered granting the WPC a sizeable "one time financial gift" of unknown proportions-but believed to be at least $2 million (see Part One in the May-June issue, pg. 16).
Kharkhardin tried to slip in and out of Helsinki, if not secretly, at least quietly. He'd come to replace his long-time nemesis and SPC bureaucratic competitor; Vladimir Oryol, in the latter's post as Soviet Secretary to the WPC. This goal quickly achieved, he tried to assess the WPC's financial position for the coming period in consultation with WPC Executive-Secretary Ray Stewart of New Zealand.
AN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION?
The state of the WPC which Kharkhardin discovered in Helsinki can only be described as bleak. If not for the "one-time" gift, placed into a fund managed by a small and still unknown group of confidants dose to both Kharkhardin and Ray Stewart, the WPC would simply collapse.
Apart from the interest payments the fund produced, the WPC had virtually no income. Hardly any of its supposedly 145 "member organizations" had paid their dues and the total paid subscriptions of the WPC's two publications was less than 50 and not likely to increase. The WPC staff, cut from nearly 60 in the late 1980s to 4 or 5 now, would probably be shrunk down to Stewart himself.
Furthermore, the WPC's President, Evangelos Maheras from Greece, was becoming increasingly irritated by the way the Helsinki office, and the organization as a whole, was being run. He resented being kept ignorant of the organization's finances, a situation which made him look more like a figure-head than an active president.
Admitting that many of the WPC's "member organizations" existed only on paper, he seemed increasingly uncomfortable with his figurehead role.
"I have not a full knowledge of our economic situation" he wrote. He continued with what in any organization—other than the WPC—would have been a rather extraordinary revelation:
"I have read in the Liaison Office's report (i.e. Stewart's) that there is a fund deposited in the Bank, the interest from which provides an income for the WPC. I don't know how this fund was created, how it functions and how long it will exist." (WPC Executive Committee Minutes, Resolutions, Reports. Berlin, 8-9 February, 1992. Appendix 13.)
If the current financial situation continues, Mahares concluded, the WPC will probably have to close shop in Helsinki, a move that, from what I can tell, will not produce a wave of national mourning in the Finnish capital.
THE MAGIC PARTICIPANTS LIST
Despite the infusion of Soviet fluids just prior to the USSR's collapse, the WPC appears to be on its last leg, although it could indefinitely continue in a state of suspension. Inertia, habit, psychological dependency, lack of direction, fear of the unknown in the post-Cold War era, and that last dose of Moscow Gold (see Part One) will keep it hobbling along.
The attendance of the February Berlin WPC Executive Committee suggests an organization with some international potential, at least on paper. Looking good on paper has always been most important to the WPC.
It might not have built any peace campaigns of substance for nearly 20 years, but the WPC had some interesting participant lists. It wasn't that difficult to give away free tickets and hotel rooms to people who were mostly just curious to see what the WPC was about. In fact the list was an end in itself, an absolutely vital element in WPC bureaucratic survival. The key was how well the list played in Moscow at the International Department of the Central Committee. Here insulated bureaucrats tried in vain to evaluate a peace movement they had never seen or experienced, based upon lists of participants-and on the good word of Oleg Kharkhardin or Romesh Chandra, who made the rounds there.
An interesting "list of participants" reinforced the widening gap between reality and the fantasy that the world's peoples "stood by" the WPC, which in turn stood "shoulder to shoulder" with Leonid Brezhnev and the USSR. That little bit of political schmaltz was the grease needed to open the hard currency spigot to enable the money to flow into the WPC's Helsinki bank accounts.
But now there is no more Soviet Union; there are no more insulated Moscow bureaucrats from the Central Committee's International Department to bribe, cajole, or influence. Now the WPC participant lists are just a list of people from different countries who have been under the false impression that they were the international peace movement. Generally speaking they represent narrow forces close to dying communist parties or countries that no longer exist.
Let's put to rest the ideological rationale to which some WPC advocates still cling: its potential as an international peace organization with broad contacts in the Third World, which supposedly constitute its "unique character." Certainly the idea of international peace cooperation that entails strengthening the ties between peace movements in advanced industrialized countries and those of Asia, Africa and Latin America deserved serious consideration.
Over the years, Third World countries and social movements did join the WPC—mostly as one of a number of avenues to reach Moscow. The essence of the WPC 's role was as a kind of brokerage house for the movements wanting ties with the USSR. The USSR funnelled these movements through the WPC, making WPC events colorful affairs, if nothing else. Unfortunately, it created an illusion that was not matched by reality. Little tangible peace work resulted beyond the usual statements of solidarity.
Many things and people might have changed in the world, but Oleg Kharkhardin isn't likely to be one of them. Those familiar with the World Peace Council know that Kharkhardin was no stranger to Helsinki's Lönnrotinkatu 25-the WPC's headquarters. In the post-USSR period the Soviet Peace Committee has become the International Federation of Peace and Reconciliation (IFPC) and Oleg Kharkhardin has become the organization's "first vice-president"
The IFPC claims that 35 organizations are affiliated to it, but only one is known for certain—the WPC. IFPC is housed at the same Moscow address —36 Prospect Mira—as the SPC, and it is staffed by the same staff. Although permitted to function in the post-USSR era, according to informed sources —the former Soviet Peace Fund (now the Russian Peace Fund) has been consider-ably slashed.
KICKING A NOT-YET DEAD HORSE
This horse isn't quite dead yet. These people remain entrenched and in power in the new IFPC—an indication of how cleverly some former Soviet bureaucrats have been able to ride the waves of change. Their agencies more or less survive, with their bureaucratic power intact, merely changing vocabulary and political masks at critical intervals.
Recently in an interview in The Nation, noted Soviet expert Stephen Cohen made some telling remarks which help explain the political survival of the world's Oleg Kharkhardins. Cohen commented on the degree to which the "old elites" of the former Soviet Union retain considerable power in the new situation. They have, in fact, consolidated their hold on much property and wealth and no new elite, no new class forces have yet emerged to challenge the authority of the apparatchiks. (See The Nation, March 2, 1992, pgs 260-261).
It turns out that such questions are of more than academic interest. The Yeltsin government in Russia would like to know more about this situation as well. Shortly after coming to power at the end of 1991, the Russian government sent a team of investigators to Finland to probe the CPSU-SPC-WPC connection. Specifically it was interested in the transfer of fluids from the former CPSU to the West through the WPC just prior to and after the abortive coup that attempted to restore the CPSU old guard to power in August, 1991.
Unfortunately they returned to Moscow empty-handed. Relevant Finnish banks, claiming to respect the confidentiality of their clients, refused to discuss the WPC's Finnish financial dealings with the Russian investigators. The secret fund, which supports the lion's share of the WPC budget—as well as decades of the organization's questionable financial dealings- remains shrouded in mystery.
The documents in the archives of the International Department of the former CPSU—as well as the ample records of the relevant Finnish banks—have yet to yield their secrets on this score. It remains for some enterprising team of Finish and Russian research journalists to pursue the matter.
After receiving so much adverse publicity in the 1988-1990 period, the WPC leadership was interested in leaving Helsinki for a safer and more obscure haven from which to conduct its operations. There were speculations and many open suggestions that the organization would soon leave the Finnish capital. It would relocate in Athens, under the protective wing of the Greek Communist Party, which seemed somewhat interested.
According to informed sources, that move did not take place, nor is it likely to. The reason is quite simple. The Greek laws on banking confidentiality are different from those in Finland. The Greek banks could not assure the WPC the kind of confidentiality that it has enjoyed since the late 1960s when it first moved to Helsinki. Better to retain a low profile in Finland and keep its bank records secret rather than risk financial exposure—the WPC's version of a fate worse than death.
Rob Prince served as U.S. representative to the Secretariat of the World Peace Council from late 1985 through mid – 1990. He now lives in Denver, Colorado.
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