Today’s edition of Inkstain Economic Indicators is not good.

There’s a new bike trail through my neighborhood, so I no longer cut behind our Mega Wal-Mart Giganto Store, but I took a detour today to see what’s up. The paved pads behind the store have always been a good economic indicator. When there are a lot of big shipping/storage containers stacked out back to provide additional storage, I infer that sales are up. During the Thanskgiving-Christmas period, for example, I’ve counted as many as 40. There’s always some, no matter what time of year, being used to stage retail goods to ensure the shelves never go empty.

But not today. Zero. Never seen that before.