According to Off The Grid News here are 16 companies that have closed stores or will before early 2015:

1. Office supply company Staples has announced plans to close 225 stores by 2015, which is about 15 percent of its chain. Staples already closed 40 stores last year. Industry analysts expect Staples’ main competitor, Office Depot, which bought OfficeMax last year, to announce its own round of store closings soon.

2. Radio Shack has announced plans to close 20 percent of its stores this year, which is as many as 1,100 stores. The company, which operates around 4,000 stores, reported that its sales fell by 19 percent last year.

3. Albertsons closed 26 stores in January and February according to Supermarket News. Analysts expect many more Albertsons could soon be shuttered because Albertsons owner hedge fund Cerberus Capital Management just bought Safeway Inc. Some Safeway stores could soon shut down as well.

4. Clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch is planning to close 220 stores by the end of 2015. The company is also planning to shut down an entire chain it owns, Gilly Hicks, which has 20 stores, 24/7 Wall Street reported.

5. Barnes & Nobles is planning to shut down one third of its stores in the next year: about 218 stores. The chain has already closed its iconic flagship store in New York City.

6. J.C. Penney is closing about 33 stores and laying off about 2,000 employees.

7. The Record newspaper in New Jersey reported that Toys R Us has plans to close 100 stores.

8. The Sweetbay Supermarket chain will close all 17 of the stores it operates in the Tampa Bay area, the Herald Tribune newspaper reported. Many of the stores might open as Winn-Dixie Stores. Sweetbay closed 33 stores in Florida last year.

9. The entire Loehmann’s chain of discount clothing stores in the New York City area shut down. Loehmann’s once operated 39 stores, The New York Times reported, and was considered an institution by generations of New Yorkers.

10. Industry analyst John Kernan told CNN that he expects Sears Holdings, which owns both Sears and Kmart, to close another 500 stores this year. Sears has already shut down its flagship store in Chicago.

11. Quiznos has filed for bankruptcy, USA Today reported, and could close many of its 2,100 stores.

12. Sbarro which operates pizza and Italian restaurants in malls, is planning to close 155 locations in the United States and Canada. That means nearly 20 percent of Sbarro’s will close. The chain operates around 800 outlets.

13. Ruby Tuesday announced plans to close 30 restaurants in January after its sales fell by 7.8 percent. The chain currently operates around 775 steakhouses across the US.

14. An unknown number of Red Lobster stores will be sold. The chain is in such bad shape that the parent company, Darden Restaurants Inc., had to issue a press release stating that the chain would not close. Instead Darden is planning to spin Red Lobster off into another company and sell some of its stores.

15. Ralph’s, a subsidiary of Kroger, has announced plans to close 15 supermarkets in Southern California within 60 days.

16. Safeway closed 72 Dominick’s grocery stores in the Chicago area last year.

Also according to Retail Info System News here are retailers (listed by number of store closings and date), including downsizing and company bankruptcies: 

Which stores are being hit the hardest?

Retail & restaurants.

For more information …

• http://risnews.edgl.com/retail-news/Top-Retailers-Closing-Doors-in-201597959
• http://www.offthegridnews.com/financial/economic-reality-16-major-chains-closing-more-stores/
• http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/completely-surreal-pictures-of-americas-abandoned-malls#.fvrWWMyD73
• Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/groups/DeadMallEnthusiasts/

What’s Causing This HUGE Problem?

Let me sum it up for you… Regulations, additional fees, high taxes, ObamaCare and in some areas the high minimum wages is KILLING today’s business.

Did you know that an employee that earns $10/hr actually cost the business over $20/hr. If you include ObamaCare, it’s significantly greater than $20/hr for that $10/hr wage the employee is earning.

Watch this very informative short video on the Three Reasons Government Regulation is Killing Businesses…

Democrats just don’t get it and keep pushing more regulations and more taxes on businesses.

Then there’s republicans that support the big businesses giving them advantages and tax breaks that small business just cannot compete with, let alone trying to compete with the buying power of big businesses.

Taxes

Businesses in the United States pay the highest Corporate tax in the world. Yes, in the world!

Here’s the FEDERAL Corporate Tax Rate …

Take a good look at it. Did you notice how a business that only makes $100,000 to $335,000 have to pay the HIGHEST tax %? This is what small businesses have to put up with, thanks to our lovely government!

You tell me how this is fair?

This group pays a higher % of taxes than a major corporation making over $15 million a year, or even the next tier of $335k to $10 million at only 34%. And you want small business to be taxed more, or for minimum wages to be increased which for many will put them out of business. Already American businesses have the highest corporate tax in the world.

Then, ON TOP of this, the owner has to pay taxes on the income he takes from the business. So a business owner pays up to 39% on the profits of his business, and then he pays another up to 39.6% (15% – 28% is the average for small business owners) on his personal income . And this is just FEDERAL and doesn’t even take into consider what he has to pay in taxes to the STATE he lives in.

And don’t forget the taxes he pays based upon the income he pays each of his employees.

Sheesh! That’s a whole lot of taxes!

To really bring my point about taxes home, check out what the corporate tax is in other countries. Here’s what a few countries close to us charge:

• Mexico: 30% highest
• Canada: 11%-15% (federal) + 0%-16% (provincial)

I am so sick and tired of hearing democrats get all excited about campaign promises to tax small businesses even more or to hear how minimum wage needs to be increased for the reasons I’ve shared. What they should be doing is HELPING small businesses. They should be looking at ways to make it easier to own a business and even provide tax breaks for the first couple of years which are the toughest years of any new business.

Minimum Wages

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/03/16/we-are-seeing-the-effects-of-seattles-15-an-hour-minimum-wage/

Democrats and minimum wage employees are all pushing to increase the minimum wage. In Washington they increased the minimum wage to $15/hour in the Seattle area specifically. It’s not state wide, just in the Seattle area.

Was this good or bad?

Let’s discuss what happens when minimum wages go up. We’ll start by taking a look at the cost of living in 1970.