You are surprised, really?

Apparently the stock market is trumpeting the "surprise profit" from Sears. See the story.
When Walmart had a good year in 2008 everyone said oh yea of course they did they sell stuff cheap. So why are we surprised that Sears had a profit? If you really want to understand how things work in difficult times, I suggest that you go live somewhere outside of New York, Washington DC, LA or even Dallas and Houston. Go to some of the small towns where the majority of the folks never have been living the high life. Things are just more normal in small towns.

Sure it's a global economy and everyone gets 24 hour news. I am not saying that people who live outside the major metropolitan areas are out of the loop or even missing out on the bad economy. It's just that they did not as totally buy into the bubble that burst last year. For the past 20 years small towns have just lived a more stable economic lifestyle. (maybe that's been true for the past 50 years) They have had to deal with a lot of the young people leaving for the big city and big city paychecks. (some of the old people leave too) The population of most cities under 40,000 in population that are not part of a CMSA has been either steady or more likely shrinking for years. The vast majority of people chase money and recently most of the money has been flowing around the large population areas.

Economics still gets down to supply and demand, which means small towns have not had the huge run up in real estate prices or the cost of services. I was driving to Dublin Texas this week and I was hungry so I stopped at McDonald's in Fort Worth (population 750,000 or so, part of the Dallas-Ft Worth CMSA..the 4th largest in the country) to get a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit. It cost me $3.13. I drove on towards Dublin, but one sandwich did not do it for me, so when I got to Granbury (population 6,000 or so, 1 hour outside the DFW CMSA) I stopped for another BECB. It costs me $2.85. Supply and demand.

I know our country is going through a down economy, but I don't know that it is all that more difficult than what thousands of small towns in the US have been going through for years. When times are tough, people simplify and cut back and live more conservatively. Times have been tough in small towns for years and guess who does pretty good in those communities? Walmart and Sears.