Horror Report

Tag: economy

  • When we shop, we shop with the spirit!

    When we shop, we shop with the spirit!

    A couple of years ago, when Spirit Halloween somehow managed to turn itself into an actual movie, it pretty much solidified what had already been happening for years: Spirit Halloween had become part of pop culture and annual traditions..

    For decades, the annual appearance of a Spirit Halloween has been one of the first unofficial signs that summer is dying. Suddenly, your favorite dilapidated former Ames, Kmart, Sears, or whatever other retail chain disappeared 15 years ago has a giant orange SPIRIT HALLOWEEN banner hanging across the front.

    Those sliding doors open once again.. and large animatronics greet you in earnest..

    THE HAUNTING EXPANSION

    Spirit Halloween is part of Spencer Spirit Holdings, the company behind Spencer’s, and now that retail family is apparently about to become a behemoth.

    Spencer Spirit Holdings, Inc. announced that it has signed a definitive agreement with Sycamore Partners to acquire Hot Topic, Inc. and its portfolio of brands: Hot Topic, BoxLunch, and Her Universe.

    That would put six pretty recognizable retail concepts under one corporate umbrella and give the combined company a footprint of more than 3,000 stores across North America.

    Think about that for a second.

    Spirit Halloween. Spencer’s. Hot Topic. BoxLunch. Her Universe.

    This is basically the Avengers of people who buy Halloween decorations, Stranger Things shirts, anime merchandise, lava lamps, Funko Pops, and things they absolutely did not intend to purchase when they walked into the mall.

    And this also has us wondering about something else.

    Spirit Christmas has already started appearing. So if the Spirit empire keeps growing, how long before the abandoned retail spaces of America simply belong to Spirit year-round?

    Spirit Christmas.

    Spirit Easter.

    Spirit Valentine’s Day.

    Spirit Fourth of July.

    And while we’re at it, why not Spirit Indigenous Peoples’ Day?

    The Spirit will never leave.

    I think everyone would be fine with that.

    Because Spirit Halloween openings over the last couple of years — and especially this year — have started becoming more than just a date on the calendar. They’re becoming actual events. There’s music. There’s cosplay. There are crowds waiting for the doors to open.

    Adults temporarily pausing their day jobs, bills, responsibilities and ordinary lives for a brief lapse into ghoulish immaturity.

    No judgment here. We will most likely be stopping at just about every Spirit Halloween we see over the next several weeks as the fall decorating season begins.

    So get ready.

    A lot more retail space may soon be donning the Spirit family logo.

    And we have a feeling that someday it might not just be Halloween.

    Coming soon to a closed-down former retail space near you:

    Spirit Everything..

  • Ny POST: Paramount eyes massive round of job cuts in early November

    Ny POST: Paramount eyes massive round of job cuts in early November

    It will be a turkey of a Thanksgiving for thousands of Paramount employees.

    The media giant is targeting early November for what one insider called an epic “bloodbath” — a massive round of layoffs following its merger with Hollywood studio Skydance Media, The Post has learned.

    Jeff Shell — the former NBCUniversal boss tapped by Skydance as Paramount’s new president — has told managers at the home to Paramount Pictures, CBS, MTV and Showtime to start compiling “kill lists,” a source with knowledge said.

    Read the full story..

    Developing..

  • The city of brotherly love becomes the city of utterly garbage

    The city of brotherly love becomes the city of utterly garbage

    Something strange is happening in Philadelphia right now—a real-life social experiment unfolding in real time, and it’s not one the city signed up for. The so-called “City of Brotherly Love” is quickly becoming the City of Utter Garbage.

    Sanitation workers—members of District Council 33—have gone on strike. So have workers from the Water Department. Even 911 operators briefly joined the picket line before court orders forced some of them back to work. But the most visible—and pungent—impact is coming from the absence of sanitation services.

    The union’s grievances are real: they say wages haven’t kept up with inflation, cost-of-living increases have been ignored, and the value of their essential work has gone long unrecognized. And now, Philadelphia is about to learn just how valuable these workers are.

    @fox29philadelphia

    It’s been a little less than 24 hours since District Council 33, Philadelphia’s largest workers’ union, went on strike and dumpsters are already overflowing at designated trash drop-off sites.

    ♬ original sound – FOX 29 Philadelphia

    Garbage is already piling up on street corners on day one of the strike. Giant dumpsters set up by the city—meant to act as temporary collection points—were filled by the end of the first day. Overflowing trash is now stacking beside them, baking in the 90-degree heat.

    Mayor Cherelle Parker urged residents to drive their garbage to one of these dozens of authorized sites. But that suggestion is tone-deaf at best. Nearly 480,000 Philadelphians don’t own a vehicle. So unless you plan to walk your garbage in the summer heat through a city already buckling under stress, you’re out of luck.

    https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTjEBpmwX

    What we’re witnessing isn’t just a labor dispute—it’s a test of urban resilience. How long can a modern American city function without basic sanitation? At what point does trash become not just an inconvenience but a public health crisis? And what happens to the social fabric when the very people who keep the system running say, “Enough”?

    Meanwhile, Mayor Parker and other city officials have accused some individuals of deliberately opening fire hydrants to sabotage water pressure—another alarming sign of social tension in the midst of this strike.

    One thing is clear: this is going to get worse before it gets better.

    This happened before–July 1 1986.. about 40 years ago. That one lasted 20 days and was pretty rotten. 2025’s may not be better.

    District Council 33 has reached its breaking point. The bigger question now is: How long until the entire city of Philadelphia does too? Until then, garbage will keep rising—along with the stakes.

  • DeepSeek: A shocking Chinese AI advancement called DeepSeek is sending US stocks plunging

    DeepSeek: A shocking Chinese AI advancement called DeepSeek is sending US stocks plunging

    The Dow opened about 369 points, or 0.8%, lower. The S&P 500 fell by 2% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq plunged by 3.6%. The Nasdaq hasn’t closed 4% lower since September 2022.

    Meta last week said it would spend upward of $65 billion this year on AI development. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, last year said the AI industry would need trillions of dollars in investment to support the development of in-demand chips needed to power the electricity-hungry data centers that run the sector’s complex models.

    Global chip stocks slumped Monday after Chinese artificial-intelligence company DeepSeek said it had developed AI models that nearly matched American rivals despite using inferior chips, raising fears the global dominance of U.S. tech could be under threat.

    DeepSeek said last week that the performance of its latest R1 model was on par with OpenAI’s o1-mini model that the ChatGPT maker released in September. The announcement came after DeepSeek said in a late-December report that it used a cluster of more than 2,000 Nvidia chips to train its V3 model, compared with the tens of thousands of chips that are normally used for training models of a similar size.

    Developing..

    https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/27/tech/deepseek-stocks-ai-china/index.html

  • Manic  Wall Street Monday

    Manic  Wall Street Monday

    Several online brokerage firms including Charles Schwab, Fidelity and Vanguard appeared to be down for thousands of users early Monday during one of the biggest stock markets sell-offs of 2024.

    User reports appeared to peak around and just before 10 a.m. ET, data from outage tracker Downdectector shows. Some frustrated customers online said that they were unable to log in or access their account balances.

    “Due to a technical issue, some clients may have difficulty logging in to Schwab platforms,” Charles Schwab wrote on social media platform X Monday morning. “Please accept our apologies as our teams work to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.”

    Developing..

  • BLACK FRIDAY AS WE KNOW IT IS DEAD

    BLACK FRIDAY AS WE KNOW IT IS DEAD

    If you went shopping today you may have noticed no lines.

    No excitement.

    No drama..

    No fights.

    And quite frankly no deals–but were there ever deals? It was all fake anyway, right?

    In the end, everything is cyclical–including Black Friday’s demise.

    A few reports for your viewing..

    It’s over..

  • $2BN of clients’ money is MISSING from collapsed crypto exchange FTX!!

    $2BN of clients’ money is MISSING from collapsed crypto exchange FTX!!

    FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried allegedly shuffled $10billion in funds to his trading firm Alameda Research, with about $2billion now missing 
    Sources said that the CEO showed spreadsheets revealing the missing funds from FTX, which along with Alameda declared bankruptcy on Friday 
    Bankman-Fried denied making the secret transfers to his crypto trading firm, which is run by his girlfriend, Caroline Ellison 
    He declined to comment about the missing funds and said his firm had ‘confusing internal labeling’ 
    The SEC, which has been criticized for not acting sooner, is investigating FTX’s handling of customer funds, as well its crypto-lending activities
    — Read on www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11419415/At-1-billion-client-funds-missing-failed-crypto-firm-FTX-sources.html

    This story only seems to be developing.. it’s like the Enron of the modern era.

    And here we thought only the Federal Reserve should be audited!! Ha

  • Summer shortage: The supply chain nightmare is going to get worse.. imminent warnings of diesel shortages on the East coast

    Summer shortage: The supply chain nightmare is going to get worse.. imminent warnings of diesel shortages on the East coast

    Major trucking fleets across the eastern half of the US are preparing for an “imminent” diesel shortage, according to logistics firm FreightWaves.

    Founder and CEO of FreightWaves Craig Fuller said “3 very large fleets” are preparing for diesel pumps at fuel stations to run dry. Drivers of these fleets received notifications about fuel shortages that could materialize in the coming weeks across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions.

    Developing..

  • Baby formula shortage nightmare: “This is a crisis. We can’t flip a switch and make a lot more formula”

    Baby formula shortage nightmare: “This is a crisis. We can’t flip a switch and make a lot more formula”

    Modi is CEO and cofounder of Bobbie, a San Francisco-based direct-to-consumer seller and subscription service for organic milk-based baby formula that is produced in a Vermont facility and backed by $72 million in venture capital funding.

    She’s acutely aware of the desperation in those outreaches, which have intensified in recent weeks amid an ongoing nationwide shortage of infant formula. A message at the top of the company’s website says, “We’re temporarily at capacity for new customers.” Other manufacturers say they’re producing at full capacity and making as much formula as they can. But demand is heavily outstripping supply.

    — Read on www.cnn.com/2022/05/10/business/baby-formula-production-bobbie/index.html

    This is an absolute nightmare scenario for parents who rely on baby formula to feed their infants. Store shelves are bare, and there are reports nationwide of issues.

  • “RECESSION SHOCK” COMING.. coining the term now: The #GreaterRecession

    “RECESSION SHOCK” COMING.. coining the term now: The #GreaterRecession

    The macro-economic picture is deteriorating fast and could push the U.S. economy into recession as the Federal Reserve tightens its monetary policy to tame surging inflation, BofA strategists warned in a weekly research note.

    “‘Inflation shock’ worsening, ‘rates shock’ just beginning, ‘recession shock’ coming”, BofA chief investment strategist Michael Hartnett wrote in a note to clients, adding that in this context, cash, volatility, commodities and crypto currencies could outperform bonds and stocks.

    The Federal Reserve on Wednesday signaled it will likely start culling assets from its $9 trillion balance sheet at its meeting in early May and will do so at nearly twice the pace it did in its previous “quantitative tightening” exercise as it confronts inflation running at a four-decade high.