Crap merchant Wal-Mart has watched shoppers flee its grim aisles in increasing numbers for the past two years -- seven straight quarters of declining sales. So what happened to this glorious monument of American Exceptionalism in the late 20th Century found on the honky-tonk mini-mall edge of every Nowhere Town, USA? Why did working/lower/starving class people stop cashing their paychecks in exchange for $24.99 Chinese DVD players and frozen slabs of factory-murdered meat? Oh right, the global financial collapse/Great Recession/End of the American Economic System of attacks on labor/redistribution of wealth to the richest 0.01%.That's what happened. There are no paychecks anymore.

CNN-Money has this report from their foreign bureau in some poor slob part of America:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Wal-Mart'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, CEO Mike Duke said Wednesday.

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, he said.

Wal-Mart (WMT) is responding by aggressively building much smaller stores to accommodate the much smaller population of poor and elderly and disabled expected to survive the GOP's satanic human cull later this year. [CNN-Money via Cryptogon]