It was a crazy weekend considering all of the time changes that took place.  The clock move back one hour and the calendar jumps ahead to NOVEMBER!!!!!  Before you know it we will be sitting around the table eating a huge meal with the entire family while watching football and falling asleep on the couch.

   But in all seriousness there is a lot coming up in the next couple of months before 2010.  The holiday shopping season is fast approaching.  But how has the economy affected shoppers thinking and what are retailers preparing for this holiday season.  BMDA puts out a report on the "Economy at a Glance."  As far as I can see just looking at the sheet a lot of categories are down.  Here is some of the data.

Workforce
Bismarck-Mandan MSA Employment	Aug-09	Jul-09	Aug-08	Jul-08
	59,778	61048	62,109	62,877
MSA consists of Bismarck, Mandan, Burleigh and Morton County
City Sales Tax Collections
	Sep-09	Sep-08	YTD September 2009	YTD September 2008
Bismarck	$       840,463.00	$    1,254,490.00	$         8,515,028.00	$         8,890,079.00
Mandan	$       117,369.00	$       154,283.00	$         1,051,547.00	$         1,105,178.00
Taxable Sales & Purchases
	2009 - Q2	2008 - Q2	2007 - Q2	2006 - Q2
Bismarck-Mandan MSA	$391,679,929.00	$399,105,017.00	$      370,626,242.00	$      352,381,639.00
Bismarck	$335,132,745.00	$339,129,226.00	$      312,093,368.00	$      298,434,257.00
Burleigh County	$338,158,853.00	$342,389,444.00	$      317,504,960.00	$      302,614,256.00
Mandan	$  48,575,252.00	$  53,152,678.00	$        46,485,227.00	$        46,485,227.00
Morton County	$  52,521,076.00	$  56,715,573.00	$        49,767,383.00	$        49,767,383.00

   Granted the numbers aare not down substantially.  However, they are still down so what does this mean for the upcoming holiday shopping season.  How about the possibility of more retailers coming into the market?  All questions I will be looking to get the answers to in the coming days and weeks.

Brad Feldman
KX News
bfeldman@kxnet.com
www.twitter.com/aroundtown12
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