canary in the coal mine

Wal-Mart's store sales drop in fourth quarter - Feb. 18, 2010 i believe nothing the government reports. this is as much an economic indicator as any news available

True and true.

But I wouldn't say this is a canary in a coalmine. There were miner's bodies all over the place before the Walmart canary started to show signs she is in any trouble.

Could that be related to this somehow?

Top 400 Earners in U.S Averaged $345 Million in 2007, IRS Says

Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) -- The 400 highest-earning U.S. households reported an average of $345 million in income in 2007, up 31 percent from a year earlier, IRS statistics show.
The average tax rate for the households fell to the lowest in almost 20 years.
The figures for 2007, the last year of an economic expansion, show that the average income reported by the top 400 earners more than doubled from $131.1 million in 2001. That year, Congress adopted tax cuts urged by then-President George W. Bush that Democrats say disproportionately benefits the wealthy.
Each household in the top 400 of earners paid an average tax rate of 16.6 percent, the lowest since the agency began tracking the data in 1992, the Internal Revenue Service statistics show. Their average effective tax rate was about half the 29.4 percent in 1993, the first year of President Bill Clinton?s administration, when taxes were increased.
The statistics underscore ?two long-term trends: that income at the very top has exploded and their taxes have been cut dramatically,? said Chuck Marr, director of federal tax policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington research group that supports increasing taxes on high-income individuals.
The top 400 earners received a total $138 billion in 2007, up from $105.3 billion a year earlier. On an inflation-adjusted basis, their average income grew almost fivefold since 1992, the data show.
Political Ammunition
The data may provide ammunition for President Barack Obama and Democrats led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California who say they intend to increase the capital gains tax rate and let tax rates for the highest earners increase in 2011.
Almost three-quarters of the highest earners? income was in capital gains and dividends taxed at a 15 percent rate set as part of Bush-backed tax cuts in 2003, the statistics show. Of the 400 earners, 289 paid a total effective federal tax rate of 20 percent or less in 2007, the last year for which figures were available, the data show.
Bill Ahern, director of policy and communications for the Tax Foundation, a Washington research group that advocates lower taxes, said the 2007 data doesn?t reflect the current economic circumstances.
?In a good year like 2007, it?s not surprising to see that the owners and managers of the nation?s largest firms made a fortune,? Ahern said. ?Notice that two-thirds of their 2007 income was in capital gains, which have dropped like a rock since then.?
The data were first reported by Tax.com, a blog run by Virginia publisher Tax Analysts.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ryan Donmoyer in Washington at rdonmoyer@bloomberg.net

Top 400 Earners in U.S Averaged $345 Million in 2007, IRS Says - Yahoo! News

Could walmart sales decline be related to the richest Americans getting a sweetheart tax deal? Is that what you're asking?

I'm asking if the growing chasm between those with the most and those with the least could be affecting sales numbers at the nation's largest discount retailer.

I think it is more lack of overall $ to spend (and too many Chinese recalls).

Could it be that in a cyclical market Wal-Mart has finally hit a wall? All the greats have had their peaks and have either fallen completely or at best lumbering giants limping to the finish line.

Sears
K-Mart
Montgomery Ward
etc.

Could it be that in a cyclical market Wal-Mart has finally hit a wall? All the greats have had their peaks and have either fallen completely or at best lumbering giants limping to the finish line.

Sears
K-Mart
Montgomery Ward
etc.

I see/hear no indications that the walmart people are complacent or tht they are losing their edge. Their problem is many people have no money to spend and those that do are concentrating on getting out of debt instead of buying new toys. Debt reduction is good for the long term economy but bad for short term sales.