Wal Mart CEO: "Shoppers Are Running Out Of Money"; There Is "No Sign Of A Recovery"

About a month ago we wrote a post about Walmart's CEO warning American's to prepare for serious inflation.  You can see that post here.

Walmart's CEO Bill Simon said at the time that:

• "every single retailer has and is paying more for the items they sell, and retailers will be passing some of these costs along. Except for fuel costs, U.S. consumers haven't seen much in the way of inflation for almost a decade, so a broad-based increase in prices will be unprecedented in recent memory."

Well almost a month later, Simon is making news again on the inflation front and it comes a day after US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke insisted that "the economic recovery was proceeding at a moderate pace, with little risk an inflationary psychology would take hold."

In an interview with USA Today, Simon says that consumers face "serious" inflation in the months ahead for clothing, food and other products and that "we're seeing cost increases starting to come through at a pretty rapid rate.".

John Long, a retail strategist, notes that labor costs in China and fuel costs for transportation are weighing heavily on retailers. He predicts prices will start increasing at all retailers in June.

"Every single retailer has and is paying more for the items they sell, and retailers will be passing some of these costs along," Long says. "Except for fuel costs, U.S. consumers haven't seen much in the way of inflation for almost a decade, so a broad-based increase in prices will be unprecedented in recent memory."

In another article, on CNN Money, Walmart noted that the store's core shoppers are running out of money much faster than a year ago due to rising gasoline prices, and the retail giant is worried.

• "We're seeing core consumers under a lot of pressure. There's no doubt that rising fuel prices are having an impact.  Wal-Mart shoppers, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck, typically shop in bulk at the beginning of the month when their paychecks come in. Lately, they're running out of money at a faster clip. Purchases are really dropping off by the end of the month even more than last year. This end-of-month [purchases] cycle is growing to be a concern."

To that end, Walmart says they are not seeing any signs of a recovery yet.

(Note: I hope to have the COMEX post I refered to yesterday for you later tonight)

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