The 90's are dead. Again.

According to the global investment banking firm, Jeffries, brands like FILA, Champion, and others known mostly for their 'retro' 90's designs are in trouble. Despite a surge in popularity over the past few years that had everyone wearing Supreme, sales for throwback fashion retailers going into 2020 are nothing short of worrisome. "These brands in particular are no longer driving the buzz they did [last year]," said Jeffries analyst, Janine Stichter. While brands like Zumiez and Guess "are showing relatively better staying power" than competitors like Urban Outfitters who rely more dramatically on vintage aesthetics.

Trendy hipsters shown wearing popular 90's fashion brands like FILAHow will we survive?

So that's what's happening in fashion. But it's not just denim that's fading this year (see what I did there?), we also have the US economy! President Donald Trump announced this week plans to ratify a bill backing protesters in Hong Kong. China was not having it and made it clear there would be retaliation. "The standoff," as Reuters referred to it "knocked Wall Street's main indexes off record highs."

At 10:19 a.m. ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI was down 56.67 points, or 0.2%, at 28,107.33, while the S&P 500 .SPX was down 4.08 points, or 0.13%, at 3,149.55. The Nasdaq Composite .IXIC was down 9 points, or 0.1%, at 8,696.18. - Reuters

"But that's just one crappy day," you say. Tell that to Barclays! They decided this week to focus their equities on European and emerging markets going into 2020. "This market is a better bet than U.S. stocks," claims Emmanuel Cau, European equity strategist at Barclays. And of course, like everything else, Trump has something to do with it. Cau went on to state: "U.S. equities have tended to perform well in the fourth years of presidential terms, but this time around, the Trump impeachment hearings could affect investor confidence given the possible impacts on the outcome of the next election." He then threw some shade towards Senator Elizabeth Warren's policies and my eyes rolled right off the page.

Finally, let's talk Black Friday, baby! Nothing cures economic meltdown woes like good old retail therapy, am I right? (Won't help Supreme or Urban Outfitters though...they're doomed.) Shoppers dropped $4.2 billion online during Thanksgiving and are expected to spend at least $7.4 billion online today for Black Friday. Those are record highs for online sales and a nearly 15% increase over last year.

What are people buying? AirPods, apparently.

Statistics show Apple's growing domination of the wireless earbud marketApple is basically the Air Bud of earpods. The Ear Bud of airdogs? Kill me. Statista

While online sales are skyrocketing and total money spent on Black Friday has increased every year since 2008, sales in brick-and-mortar stores continue to decline. As a result, holiday season hiring for retailers has been declining since 2016 and several companies have been offering exclusive in-store sales, desperate to relive the glory days of sweet, sweet foot traffic. You know, like when hoards of people would trample each other for 20% off meaningless junk. I'm sorry, toys are not junk. Toys save lives, and that is a fact. Regardless, as thebalance.com recently reported, over 75% of popular toys are purchased online at walmart.com, so stores are screwed. Remember Toys 'R' Us? Oh boy, that's what we'll be saying about Urban Outfitters in a few years!

And that's your week in financial news!

UPDATE: a Toys 'R' Us was raised from the dead in a New Jersey mall this week. The zombie apocalypse is upon us!

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If your business offers corporate credit cards or expense accounts to employees, there's a good chance there is unethical spending going on.

33% of corporate credit card holders admit to blatantly defrauding the companies they work for, and twice that amount admit to making "risky purchases." But a thread on AskReddit reveals some of the worst uses of company credit cards EVER. Here are ten fraudulent ways you might not want to use your company credit card (unless you're trying to get fired).

Making an addition to a rental house

User alltechrx tells the story of two coworkers entangled in an affair so torrid, they ran up 20k on a company card making additions to a house they didn't even own:

A co-worker was dating someone that also worked for our company. He used his company card to buy an addition to the girls friends house. Something like a 20k addition. The accountants caught it, and started digging around to figure out why we had bought so much wood, drywall, and other building materials. Finally someone got the idea to start driving around and looking at the employees homes, and found the huge addition on the girlfriends home.
They were both fired for theft.
The BEST part is that it wasn't even her house, it was a rental. Once she lost her job she couldn't afford the rent anymore, and got evicted.
I'm sure the landlord was laughing his ass off at the whole thing, got a nice free addition.

Buying a number of suits in excess of days you've worked for the company

User pm_meyourlegs recounted a narrative from another AskReddit thread:

There was an ask reddit for what did someone do to get fired on the first day. Dude went out on the corporate card and bought like 6 suits on his corporate card on his lunch break.

Spending company money on sex

User Cartoonhusband (Homer, is that you?) recounts one tale of tail:

Guy was overseas on a business trip in Eastern Europe and in an establishment he shouldn't have been in, decided to buy a round of drinks figuring no one would know from the name of the place what it was. Unfortunately later he was enjoying the pleasures of a lady that worked in the establishment, and having run out of cash, forgotten he had used his work card to buy the drinks when agreeing to specific services being offered by the employee, and was then surprised to be questioned by the FD a month later on why a restaurant he had bought drinks in was also charging him a 50 euro supplement for Anal!

And user Star90s tells of a similar occurrence:

I worked at a strip club back in the 90's and a customer ran up a $3500 tab on his corporate Amex and left without closing it out. A few days later we got a visit from the police as he reported the card stolen. Thing is he was a regular and we had plenty of video footage of him getting lap dances while wearing his corporate issued polo shirt. He not only got fired but was charged with filing a false police report which led to his wife divorcing him for being such a stripper loving idio

Using a corporate card to buy big, stupid things you don't need

From user eyefearnobeer, a former corporate card auditor:

I use to audit corporate card purchases for a fortune 50 company. I caught a guy trying to buy a $30k boat from Bass Pro and a $15k walk-in humidor.

Replacing your broken watch

User pushchop reports:

I used to review credit card purchases. Employees would have to submit receipts and explain what each line item was for. One guy bought a $500 watch and wrote down on his spreadsheet "watch to replace my broken one." Apparently he felt his personal wristwatch was work-related and worthy of replacing with Swiss watch with automatic movement.

Buying candy

Even the smallest purchases can catch up with you, like user drunkqueen learned the hard way:

buying a Toblerone and got caught.

Saying certain non-workplace expenses are for work

User jthe357 tells this story of company card misuse:

Worked at a retail company that gave all of its store managers corporate cards. The cards had high limits on them so the store managers could use that instead of maintaining petty cash on hand or having to use personal cards while traveling for training.
While visiting one of the stores I asked where there keurig machine was. I wanted a coffee and the closest Starbucks was a few blocks away. I had seen the manager submit her expense report with a purchase for a keurig machine, k-cups, a small bathroom fixture and a few other things. The assistant manager says "we don't have a keurig machine."
After looking into it further, turns out the manager had been using the card to buy several personal items over the last few years. Ended up repaying a little over $20k in purchases.

Pulling a Michael Scott move

User MyFirstOtherAccount reports a story that sounds suspiciously like it was taken from an episode of The Office:

Buy lunch at Hooters for his employee because he wanted to be friends with him. He had only recently gotten the card back because it was taken away after his last purchase of an $80 magic kit.

Spending $500 on chicken and waffles as an intern

Chicken and waffles are good, but are they worth losing your job over? User IntlHastings says:

I spent close to $500 on an order of Roscoe's chicken and waffles during an internship

Sounds like it might have been worth it, that is a tasty chicken and waffle spot.

Do you have any stories of company card misuse? Let us know in the comments below and follow Paypath on Twitter and Facebook for more finance tips and company card horror stories.