the companies put together and approve them if they meet the criteria set by the treasury department regulations. and then any one can sign up pretty much for those tours. greta: what did they do while they were there? well, they had a variety of very cultural mostly cultural musical artistic events on their program. they went to a contemporary dance group. they went to a children s theater group. they went to some nightclubs to see live cuban music performed. they he went to some private restaurants. and in cuba, you know, as you know most of the hotels and restaurants are run by the state but there are some restaurants that are privately owned. and so they visited a couple of those. those are the main kinds of things. they carefully avoided any meetings with the cuban government and any cuban government officials and they also didn t go to the beach or
the companies put together and approve them if they meet the criteria set by the treasury department regulations. and then any one can sign up pretty much for those tours. greta: what did they do while they were there? well, they had a variety of very cultural mostly cultural musical artistic events on their program. they went to a contemporary dance group. they went to a children s theater group. they went to some nightclubs to see live cuban music performed. they he went to some private restaurants. and in cuba, you know, as you know most of the hotels and restaurants are run by the state but there are some restaurants that are privately owned. and so they visited a couple of those. those are the main kinds of things. they carefully avoided any meetings with the cuban government and any cuban government officials and they also didn t go to the beach or
shopping. because you have mall sales up. those were up in july. here s the reason. the clearance sales going on on the spring merchandise, the summer merchandise, very good deals. consumers still do love a bargain, despite the fact that sentiment is down. it s at the lowest level it s been in something like over two years, at least it was in july. we did go to the malls in part because of deals and because july was a very, very hot month. one of the hottest julys we ve seen any 50 years. didn t go to the beach. didn t stay in our apartments. didn we went to a mall and shopped. we talk about back to school sales. what s the outlook for that? i think sales will probably come in flat at best. consumers are up against a number of headwinds. the anxiety level has increased. consumers were feeling optimistic at the beginning of the year and spending more freely. now i think we ll go back into retreat mode a little bit. a little more cautious given all