Not a good sign is it....

Yes I also observe several things are happening in the city where I used to report for work. There are several commercial establishments which were on the place for several years yet finally closed last year. This is very disappointing. Hopefully, this thing could be addressed accordingly by the government.

It depends on the level of life for that area. where the location is too crowded the more it is civilized, thus buying a newspaper is not for how much it cost, but how it is worth by reader and how it is informative.

The economy itself cannot seem to make up its mind. Housing markets are improving, and so is the Dow according to something I saw today, but like you said, small businesses seem to be closing and groceries are costing more and money just does not go as far. On our Main Street when one store closes it seems to open up quickly as something else, so I guess our local economy is okay. We are unusual. I do not think we are out of the woods with our economy yet.

all indications are showing that the economy is in recession. there was even a talk about fiscal cliff. the economy is bad. and sadly, it is getting worse each day. more and more stores are closing because there are less buyers who are willing to spend for their products. people are uptight in their budget. what people can do is work harder and harder until this all goes away.

Businesses close. If you are judging the state of the economy on one lumber store and a corner store closing, then we have always been in a state of economic decline. We are in a slow economic recovery--as measured by the erroneous measures used to define a "healthy" economy. I disagree with the use of GDP as a true measure of a nation's health, but that is what is used. The most recent quarter is the first time since 2009 that the GDP has contracted. I don't think that is a bad sign, though. Rather, it is just a slight hiccup. Plus, if we were to use another form of measuring, it might actually demonstrate that the contraction was due to positive factors--such as a public health campaign decreasing the number of people contracting a certain illness and, therefore, resulting in fewer healthcare expenditures to treat that illness.

we have the same thing here in mexico. Here big stores like walmart, and sorinas are putting the small stores out of business. That means loss of jobs here as well... Very sad...

There are currently seven empty buildings in our town. The only businesses doing any kind of money making are the fast food places and we have one of each fast food franchise (wendy's, taco bell, mcdonald's, burger king, etc...) There are NO JOBS, so it's easy for people to get discouraged. Keep a positive frame of mind though, since things are really bound to get better.