Desperate retailers try the bundle trick

The malls are back to being dead. Retailers are trying the
bundle trick - "hey buy this or that or anything and we will throw in something else for half price, quarter price.. OK still not happy? we will make the second item free - does that suit?"

Understatement of the year (and its only Jan 1) goes to The NZ Retailers Assn which says this year's challenges "are here for a little longer yet", (yeah like a couple of years of blood on the retail floor) and stating the obvious- that the fate of retailers in 2009 likely tied to the state of the global economy.

This in a country where the NZX 50 index closed an abysmal 2008 with a record 33 per cent fall for the year

Leading US right winger Fox news host Bill O'Reilly has written a column for New Years describing the economic chaos hitting many Americans "like a back alley mugger, " and adding: " What a disgrace. Wall Street hustlers gamed the system by trafficking in bad loans while Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission looked the other way. Awful. "So, I learned a painful lesson from all that: Big Brother is not watching out for us. Orwell had it wrong. We are pretty much on our own, as the federal government simply cannot or will not protect the folks from danger. Never again will I assume the feds are looking out for me."