WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. wholesale businesses restocked faster in April, responding to a strong gain in sales. The increase could be a good sign for economic growth in the April-June quarter.
The Commerce Department says stockpiles grew 0.6 percent at the wholesale level in April, double the March gain. Sales by wholesale businesses jumped 1.1 percent in April, nearly three times the March sales gain.
Stockpiles at the wholesale level stood at $483.5 billion in April. That's 25.6 percent above the post-recession low of $384.9 billion in September 2009.
It would take roughly five weeks to exhaust all wholesale stockpiles at the April sales pace. That's considered a healthy time frame and suggests businesses will keep restocking to meet demand.
When businesses step up restocking, they order more goods. That generally leads to increased factory production and higher economic growth.
Slower growth in inventories held back growth in the January-March quarter. In the first three months of this year, the economy grew at an annual rate of 1.9 percent.
The increase in wholesale inventories was bigger than economists had forecast. That could signal that inventory growth will pick up and boost economic growth in the April-June quarter.
But stockpile growth largely depends on the spending habits of U.S. consumers and businesses.
Weaker job creation in April and May could force some to scale back spending. And pay has risen just 1.7 percent over the past 12 months. That's slower than the rate of inflation for that period.
Sluggish job growth and weak pay raises threaten to drag on consumer spending, which would weaken growth.
Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of economic activity.
One positive change: Gas prices have tumbled since early April. That could give Americans more money to spend on appliances, vacations and other discretionary purchases.
Many businesses cut back on restocking last summer fearing that the economy was on the verge of another recession.
When it became clear that it wasn't, they raced to rebuild stockpiles and keep pace with consumer demand.
Stockpiles at the wholesale level account for about 27 percent of total business inventories. Stockpiles held by retailers make up about one-third of the total. Manufacturing inventories represent about 40 percent of the total.
£10 legal high killed teenager at RockNess, police fear - scotsman.com
POLICE are investigating whether a teenager who died at a Scottish music festival took a “legal high” drug used by two of his friends, who have been hospitalised.
Alex Heriot, 19, from the Portobello area of Edinburgh, died on Saturday night after collapsing next to the main stage at RockNess, near Inverness.
Two friends who were in the same group as Mr Heriot – and had taken the drug Benzo Fury, which is sold as “research chemicals” – became ill and taken to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness. RockNess event commander Superintendent Stevie Mackay said: “Early indications are that the man may have consumed drugs and this is one of the lines of inquiry at this stage. A post-mortem will be carried out to determine the cause of death.”
On the last day of the event yesterday, police warned festival-goers not to take Benzo Fury – which is usually sold in pink pellets in packets marked “not for human consumption”.
Supt Mackay said: “We know these tablets are on site. So far, 144 people have been caught with drugs at the festival and have been reported to the procurator fiscal. But it is still a relatively small number compared to the numbers attending.”
Police also revealed a 19-year-old woman and a 20-year-old man who were in the same group as Mr Heriot had both been hospitalised and were known to have taken Benzo Fury, a chemical compound also known as “6APB” which has similar effects to the drug ecstasy.
Supt Mackay added: “Taking drugs or any medicines, which you have not been prescribed, is an extremely risky thing to do. People may think that legal highs are safe, because they are not classed as a controlled drug, but they are extremely dangerous.
“If anyone has the tablets described or any other drug, whether controlled or a ‘legal high’, in their possession, they are advised not to take them and to hand these in.”
Mr Heriot’s friends shared news of his death on Twitter yesterday. Sophie Bubbles wrote: “We weren’t blood family, but you are still part of my family. Bye buddy.”
Kerri Mackay wrote: “My friend Alex Heriot died at RockNess.” Martha Ryan wrote: “I don’t know why it’s always the young ones. RIP.”
On a website believed to be his, Mr Heriot had written: “To say I am excited for RockNess 2012 is an absolute understatement.”
Benzo Fury can be bought wholesale over the internet and usually sells for £10 a pill, or £25 for three.
Experts said the drug had been available for a couple of years. Although genuine 6APB is not known for causing adverse reactions, street versions of the drug have emerged that may have been mixed with other, potentially more dangerous, substances. The owner of an Edinburgh shop that sells legal drugs and paraphernalia to over-18s said he feared the legal highs sold by some dealers could be cut with other ingredients, making them less safe.
The trader, who did not want to be identified, said it was known that the main ingredient, 6APB, was sometimes sold as a powder and could be combined with other unidentified chemicals.
“You should be aware that Benzo Fury is not always what it pertains to be,” he said. “There have been versions going round that are not proper 6APB.”
He added that all authentic Benzo Fury was labelled “100 per cent 6APB” and says “not for human consumption” on the packaging.
He compared the effects of the legal high with that of MDMA, better known as the dance drug ecstasy, but added that he was not aware that the drug in its pure form was particularly addictive.
“It does not give you the idea that you could OD on it,” he said. “I have never had anybody taking multiples of it. I have not heard of any adverse effects. I am very surprised to hear that it has caused these kind of reactions.”
The drug can be bought in bulk on the internet, but the shopkeeper said buyers should be cautious.
He added: “You can’t trust people selling this. You cannot just look it up online and guarantee what you are getting. You may be given a sample of something, but be sold a kilo of something else. We always check what we are getting.
“I have heard of people buying stuff which pertains to be 6APB and complained that it has kept them awake for three days. It should not do this.”
The drug is said give users a mellow, loved-up sensation. Few adverse effects have been reported, although it is believed it can cause vomiting the next day, aching limbs and a stiff jaw.
Public health consultant Dr Cameron Stark said: “Our advice is simple: limit how much alcohol you drink, and don’t take non prescribed drugs.
“If however you have taken non-prescribed drugs including ‘legal highs’, it is really important that you don’t combine them with alcohol.
“If you feel unwell or you are worried about a friend, please get immediate advice from the on-site medical team.”
Festival organiser Jim King said: “What should be very clear from this information is that legal highs does not mean safe, and customers should not go anywhere near these dangerous substances. Festival-goers should heed the advice given to them by the health professionals and the police, and stay safe by avoiding drugs of any kind.”
Harry Shapiro, director of communications for the national charity Drugscope, said young people buying the drug from dealers had no way of knowing for sure what they were taking.
He added: “People should not assume that ‘legal’ equals safe. Anyone buying these sort of drugs at a festival or club really does not have a clue what they are buying.”
He said it would be wrong to assume that Benzo Fury in its pure form as 6APB had been the cause of death before a post mortem.
Although he had never heard of any deaths related to the drug, he added: “This drug has an effect similar to amphetamines and because these are stimulants they can impact on the heart and blood pressure. If someone had a heart condition this would be a drug to avoid.”
He added that it was difficult for the law to keep up with new legal high drugs because even if they are banned they can be quickly reinvented and repackaged under different names by opportunist dealers.
As well as being sold in drug paraphernalia shops, known as “head shops”, legal highs are easily available over the internet, where they can be ordered in bulk and paid for using credit cards.
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Print this pageShopping molls flee to Spain after Harrods theft - Daily Record
Jun 10 2012 By Russell Findlay, Sunday Mail
Generic Harrods image
POLICE hunting shopping molls Annette Daniel and Jean McGovern fear the thieves have fled to Spain.
The career criminals decided to sun themselves on the Costa del Sol while the heat is on at home.
We told last week how Daniel, McGovern and three gang members were being probed over a £24,000 designer dress theft from Harrods.
CCTV images of the gang at work in the posh store in London’s Knightsbridge have been passed to the Metropolitan Police.
But the prime suspects in the robbery have now fled the UK for Marbella.
One source said: “The heat caused by the Harrods job is intense and they decided to get out as quickly as possible.
“They’ll have to return at some point but I don’t think they will be in a hurry. If I was a shopkeeper in Marbella, I’d be keeping my eyes peeled for a pair of middle-aged Scottish women.”
Marbella has a string of designer stores including Carte Ingles in Puerto Banus, which carries top lines such as Prada and Tommy Hilfiger.
Last week we revealed four Roberto Cavalli and Ralph Lauren frocks had been nicked from Harrods. The store – feared by thieves for its stringent security – didn’t notice they were missing until the following day.
Daniel, 50, and McGovern, 45, who both have lengthy criminal records, are suspected of conducting the theft with gang members Roberta Burke, 48, Julie Tomlin, 32, and John Thomson.
The pair – members of Glasgow crime clans – run a team of professional thieves who travel around the UK.
New Orleans is beginning to attract national retailers - nola.com
With a few recent retail wins, economic development officials and real estate professionals say that the prospect for getting more national stores into New Orleans is looking up. In May, after months of speculation that the shopping club Costco Wholesale Corp. would come to New Orleans, the city officially announced the retailer's plans to open at the former Carrollton Shopping Center in 2013. On Wednesday, the New Orleans Business Alliance and the Downtown Development District announced that Major League Baseball hat retailer New Era Cap Co. Inc. will open a flagship store on Canal Street before the 2013 Super Bowl, adding New Orleans to an impressive list of cities around the globe.
After years of begging retailers to come to New Orleans, the city's fortunes suddenly appear to be turning. Next year's Super Bowl and the anticipated 2015 opening of University Medical Center are creating incentives for retailers to get in and get settled. The reopening of the Hyatt and construction along the Loyola Avenue corridor are proof that the city has been able to garner investment. And more apartments downtown and the return of tourism has put more bodies downtown.
"It's getting easier. People can come here and see the results for themselves," said Matt Schwartz, a principal in the Domain Cos., which is working on a mixed residential-retail development downtown called South Market District. Schwartz hopes to announce the retail line-up for his project by the end of the summer and complete the financing by the end of the year.
In May, representatives of Schwartz's company, real estate leasing and development companies such as Corporate Realty and Stirling Properties, and development agencies such as the Downtown Development District and the New Orleans Business Alliance all trekked to Las Vegas for the International Council of Shopping Centers' global real estate convention.
For the first time, New Orleans had its own booth at the event. Rod Miller, chief executive of the New Orleans Business Alliance, which lists retail attraction as part of its mission, said that having the booth helped give credibility to their efforts, and demonstrated that the public and private sectors are working together.
"I think historically, people did not have a clear understanding of the right contact," Miller said. "What I found is that some of them had been interested in New Orleans for a while, but they didn't know how to navigate New Orleans."
The city met with some existing prospects, drummed up a few new leads, and expects several site visits to result from their efforts at the convention. Miller said that's important because if people haven't seen the city since Hurricane Katrina, particularly in the past few years, they're unlikely to believe that it's doing well and is worth their business consideration.
Kurt Weigle, president and chief executive of the Downtown Development District, said his people came back from ICSC with an appreciation that New Orleans is finally on the retail map. "The most important information that I received is that there has been a sea change in the perception of the New Orleans market. It used to be that downtown New Orleans wasn't on anybody's list. Now it's the buzz," Weigle said.
The Costco announcement immediately before the trip gave a lift to their efforts, and they believe that New Era will help, too.
Miller said that the announcements by two quality international retailers will prompt others to take a look. "They're a leading international retailer. What do they know that I don't know?" he said.
Weigle said that New Era will help Canal Street. The company builds beautiful stores, and it plans to lift the facade and re-do the building at 838 Canal St., near the corner of Baronne. "We not only get a great retailer, but we get a building brought back to its former glory. It's a lot of small pieces like that that add up to a big win for us," Weigle said.
Although Costco and New Era saw opportunity in the city, the fact that the city is "under-retailed" doesn't always work in its favor. Even when the city's demographics fit the bill, some retailers get nervous when they learn that their competitors aren't there, either. The dearth of national retailers in the city also raises the red flag that perhaps it means the city is hostile to outsiders.
Miller said the New Orleans Business Alliance tries to sell the opportunity that will exist for any company that comes here, and let companies know that while New Orleans loves its small independent retailers, it also wants and needs national competitors.
Real estate brokers say that public support and planning efforts make a difference in whether New Orleans can attract retailers.
Commercial real estate broker Don Randon says that it helps when the city works with retailers who are coming to the city and keeps any potential opposition in check by remembering that protests often come from a vocal minority.
Schaeffer Mickal, a commercial real estate broker with Latter & Blum, said that right now, it's hard to find any open retail spaces along Canal Street and in the French Quarter. In addition, it can be difficult to lure national retailers because sometimes high-volume local retailers in a touristy area are willing to pay more in rent.
Rebecca Mowbray can be reached at rmowbray@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3417.
Israel forms two lines over shopping on the Sabbath - Los Angeles Times
But among the first visitors many Saturdays is a city inspector, who goes store to store issuing $200 citations to business owners for violating Tel Aviv's ordinance against conducting commerce on the Jewish Sabbath.
Small-shop owners fire off cellphone text messages to warn one another that the inspector is making the rounds; then they chase out customers and shut their doors until he passes. Larger chains shrug off the ticket as a cost of business, far overshadowed by the profits they stand to make. A single pair of jeans at the Levi's store costs more than the fine.
Hoping to cash in on Israelis' growing affluence and lust for shopping, malls, retailers, restaurants and cinemas are throwing open their doors on Saturdays. But the trend butts up against longtime government restrictions and infuriates religious groups that want the day preserved as one of rest.
Though national law prohibits employing Jews on Saturday, enforcement has been sporadic, usually depending on the religious conviction of the sitting labor minister, according to public policy expert Guy Ben-Porat at Ben-Gurion University. Some cities also have laws against conducting business on Saturday, though Supreme Court rulings have upheld the right of certain types of commerce, including gas stations and cinemas.
It's among the many secular-religious debates dividing Israelis. But while most such clashes end up at the government's doorstep, the battle over shopping on the Sabbath is largely being dictated by the pocketbook, as retailers balance potential profits with a backlash, or boycotts, by the ultra-Orthodox.
On one side are secular and religiously tolerant consumers and business owners, who have reaped much of the benefit of Israel's recent economic growth and view the country as a modern, Western-leaning society along the lines of the United States or much of Europe.
"Tel Aviv calls itself the 'city that never sleeps,'" said Nirit Oren-Sternberg, owner of a designer home furnishings store at the Port. "So it's outrageous that we get fined for being open on Saturday. Israelis love shopping. They work hard all week and this gives them an opportunity to shop on the weekend. If someone finds that offensive then they don't have to come."
The crowds that pack the Port and the 30 other malls now open Saturdays around the country suggest that many Israelis agree. On average, retailers who open on Saturday say the day accounts for 40% of their weekly sales. As many as half a million Israelis hit the malls every Saturday, according to industry estimates.
"Saturday can be a massive day," said Ofer Shechter, chief executive of ProMall, which manages 35 malls, half of which are now open on Saturday. "The motivation is money."
On the other side are leaders of Israel's small but politically influential ultra-Orthodox community, known as haredim. They point to biblical commands about observing the Sabbath and ask: If Israel doesn't honor them, who will?
"We have no right to the land of Israel without observing the Torah and its commandments," said Shmuel Pappenheim, a spokesman for an umbrella group of haredi organizations. "If we don't follow it and preserve the Sabbath, we might as well give up our claim and give it to the Arabs."
Haredi leaders are seeking to slow the trend of shops opening on Saturdays by flexing their own economic muscle. The community has enjoyed success on some issues, pressuring private bus companies to provide separate seating for men and women and phone makers to offer so-called kosher cellphones that restrict Internet access and text messaging.
With an estimated $1.5 billion in annual buying power, the haredi community set up the Shabbat Committee in 2006 to monitor Sabbath observation and boycott businesses that ran afoul of its rules.
Their biggest target so far is businessman Dudi Weissman, who operates a chain of 24-hour markets called AM:PM. He also owns a supermarket chain, Shefa Shuk, that does about 40% of its business with the haredim.
Though AM:PM stores have always remained closed on Saturday in ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods, the Shabbat Committee demanded that Weissman close all of his stores on the Sabbath. When he refused, they called for a boycott of his supermarkets. Since then, some of the stores have shut down, though company officials have said the closures were unrelated to the boycott.
Weissman declined to comment, as did leaders of the Shabbat Committee. To date, most of his AM:PM stores remain open on Saturdays, leading even supporters of observing the Sabbath to question whether the effort succeeded.
"Boycotts are ineffective," said Yakov Halperin, head of a mall-based optometry chain that closes all of its 130 offices on Saturday, even though it costs the company significant revenue. "They work for a limited time, but then they break down because the religious public is not united."
Still, there is a chilling effect. Haifa-based Cinemall, a large shopping complex on the outskirts of the port city, is considering becoming the latest mall to open on Saturdays, perhaps this fall. But the owner is hesitating, in part out of personal religious beliefs, a mall manager said. Business rivals noted that he also owns a supermarket chain that could be vulnerable to a boycott.
Religious activists have succeeded in keeping most malls that are in city centers and near residential neighborhoods closed. Nearly all the shopping centers currently open on Saturday are in industrial zones or along the city edges. In religious cities, like Jerusalem, only a few restaurants, cinemas and gas stations dare to open.
But experts predict more shops will open on Saturdays as competition intensifies.
"If you look at the trends, secularization is winning big time in this case," said Ben-Porat, who has studied the intersection of religion and business for years. "Just 20 years ago you could hardly find anything open in the country on Saturday."
He said the trend was bolstered in the 1990s, when Israel shifted away from socialism and experienced an influx of more than 1 million Russian immigrants, many of whom were secular or non-Jewish.
"Ultimately this is an issue that is moving away from the political realm," Ben-Porat said. "It's really being decided by profits, not ideology and not public policy."
Batsheva Sobelman of The Times' Jerusalem bureau contributed to this report.
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