WP/AP: Nov. Retail Sales Weaker Than Expected

[DeepModem Mom]

Nov. Retail Sales Weaker Than Expected
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER
The Associated Press
Tuesday, December 13, 2005; 8:42 AM


WASHINGTON -- Retail sales came in weaker than expected in November as gains at department stores and specialty clothing stores slowed significantly, a worrisome development at the start of the holiday shopping season.

The Commerce Department reported Tuesday that sales were up 0.3 percent in November, slightly below the 0.4 percent gain that analysts had been forecasting. The strength last month came from a 2.6 percent rebound in auto sales, which had fallen for three consecutive months after surging in July.

Retailers are hoping that rising consumer confidence, spurred by a rebound in job growth and falling gasoline prices, will give a boost to sales in the closing days of the Christmas shopping season....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/13/AR2005121300476.html

[zanne]

1. With the economy, it's all in who you want to believe...

Is it just me, or do the figures and forecasts change from one media outlet to another? I don't recall needing a crystall ball when Clinton was in office, but I admit I didn't pay alot of attention to financial news then.

[Beetwasher]

2. Gee, Whoda Thunk It, I Mean, After Thanksgiving All the News Story's Were

about how amazing the sales were...:eyes:

[Bob3]

3. why is it that these analysts keep on being surprised?

What the hell are we dealing with here? It seems like economics or at least economic analysis is stuck in the middle ages "I don't understand why your majesty isn't getting well - perhaps we should add more leeches". Why is that lower sales in november surprise these clowns when anybody with half a brain could look and see with the oil prices (which haven't come down all that much) the happy talk about Ford and GM layoffs (which are real jobs - not the mc Jobs that are being added these days) and if you want to crunch numbers the painful fact that aside from ceo's and the like everybody else's wages have been stagnant or worse - people are not going to open their pocket books - well the ceo's might be giving more diamonds to their mistresses but how strong an economy is that going to create?

[second edition]

5. Good point, they seem to be right up there with the weatherpeople. n/t

[Hypatia82]

6. According to John Kenneth Galbraith...

"An economist is someone who will tell you tomorrow why what they predicted yesterday didn't happen today". And that is economic analysis in a nutshell. Of course Galbraith also said "Economics is an excellent source of employment for economists". He is among the very very few economists who actually grasps the field as a concept.

[bahrbearian]

23. Thats funny.

[cliss]

25. great post.

I have nothing further to add.

[Ready4Change]

4. Earth to Retailers! Earth to Retailers!

This Administrations choice of economic indicators, which are biased towards corporate profits, are misleading.

The true engine behind our economy, and retailers sales, is Consumer Confidence. And that is in the dumpster. It has twitched a couple times, sparked by this Declared Turning of the Economic Corner, or that report claiming growth trends.

But, individual consumers have an annoying habit of looking at their own, individual economic situation. And individuals have seen their take home pay shrink, and their costs increase, and they are turtling up into their shells for self preservation (ie: they aren't spending.)

Increasingly they view this Administrations speeches touting how great the economy is with extreme cynicism. They are realizing just how out of touch with their reality those speeches are.

We may have a red, red Christmas this year, retailers. Brace yourselves.

[Hypatia82]

7. And yet...

if those people would spend the economy would hum along nicely.

[Ready4Change]

11. Yes it would.

The question is: How to get individuals to make a choice which benefits the population as a whole?

This Administrations answer has been to lie to those individuals. And that can work, for a short while. They got segments of the economy to hesitate their downwards slide. However, people are realizing that, as a whole, the downward slide has continued, despite this Administrations myoptic focus and misleading statements. The people have realized that the parts of the economy that they most car about have continued to slide. Their pay. Their benefits. Their affordability of life. All in the dumpster.

And therein lays the answer: To get individuals make a choice which benefits all, you have to truly link the benefits directly back to the individual.

Look at nearly any chart graphing our national economic performance. The results are clear. Truly, directly, take care of average people, and the economy zooms. Screw average people and you dive into recession.

Reagonomics, the "trickle down" theory, only helped average people indirectly. Through corporations or the rich, if at all. This failed dismally. Bush1 ignored the trend and "stayed the course" of Reaganomics. Bush2 has revived those policies with predictible results.

(I call the results of this type policy a "necrotic" economy. It experiences a moment of growth, then starts devouring itself from the bottom up. The rich become more powerful in contrast to the rest of the population, but eventually everyone suffers.)

Contrast that with the Clinton economy, which zoomed until Republicans wrested control of Congress and managed to screw it all up. Clinton gave hope to the average Joe, and the average Joe responded instantly.

(This results in an economy with truly sustainable growth. Everyone gets richer.)

That CAN happen again. But not through lies. There must be real, sustained change in favor of average people. And this Administration will never go there.

[the other one]

10. Well, I have to differ here...

As odd as this sounds, the truth is there is NO CORRELATION between consumer confidence and consumer behavior. In fact, it SEEMS that if anything consumer confidence is counter-intuitive. Confidence is high after things have been good, and low after things have been bad. It is not a predictor of behavior, but a lagging indicator. Things will be going bad and people will still feel good, and things might turn up but consumers will stay very negative until things get so good that they cannot be denied.

[Ready4Change]

16. Bull. Unless you have a VERY short view.

Yes, there is a lag. But you have to have an extremely short range of view to discount the correlation.

Good economic governance must be based on a longer view, or it is doomed to the creation of a necrotic economy. That's exactly what we have now.

[shanti]

8. true dat

i was in costco last weekend and it looked like a normal weekend, not an xmas shopping weekend.

[sendero]

9. The economy has turned the corner..

.... and fallen down the stairs :)

Ok, I stole that.

[Lindsay]

24. Well stolen.

Although I might argue that it's been pushed by the Repugs.

[mhr]

12. November retail sales fall short

Tuesday December 13, 9:38 AM EST

By Andrea Hopkins

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. retail sales rose a smaller-than-expected 0.3 percent in November and fell when a surge in auto purchases was excluded, setting the stage for what could be a disappointing holiday shopping season, government data showed on Tuesday.

Sales of motor vehicles and parts surged 2.6 percent in the month, more than erasing October's 1.3 percent decline. But without the auto sales, retail demand fell 0.3 percent in the first decline since April 2004.

Both overall sales and sales outside of the auto sector were weaker than expected. Wall Street economists had forecast a 0.5 percent rise in retail sales last month, and a 0.1 percent increase excluding autos.

"A report like this will continue to fuel the debate about how strong consumer spending will be over the holiday season," said Alan Gayle, a managing director at Trusco Capital Management in Atlanta.

Snip ......

http://finance.myway.com/jsp/nw/nwdt_rt.jsp?section=news&feed=bus&src=202&news_id=bus-kwa348664&date=20051213

[waiting for hope]

13. Ah uh....someone lied to me....

"setting the stage for what could be a disappointing holiday shopping season"

Gosh darn, and I thought the economy was doing well! :sarcasm:

[MissMillie]

14. Molly wrote a good one last month

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=19885

Unfortunately, the (liberal????) media won't point this stuff out to the public.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

22. thanks for the link!

I missed that one some how. :shrug:

:)

snip>
The EPI study goes on to provide charts, bells and whistles measuring all this six ways from Sunday. The series of major tax cuts enacted in the past four years has not strengthened the economy. Every broad measure — GDP, jobs, personal income and business investment — has fared worse over the period than in previous cycles, contrary to Republican predictions. It turns out the one tax cut that really did help snap the recession early was that middle-class tax rebate the Democrats stuck into the Bush bill.

[Synnical]

15. Hm, that link now leads to: Retail Sales, Business Inventories Climb

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/13/AR2005121300476.html

Retail Sales, Business Inventories Climb

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER
The Associated Press
Tuesday, December 13, 2005; 10:29 AM

WASHINGTON -- Retail sales posted a moderate increase in November, helped by a big rebound in auto sales and continued strong demand at building supply centers as the victims of the Gulf Coast hurricanes repair their homes.

The Commerce Department reported Tuesday that retail sales were up 0.3 percent in November, slightly below the 0.4 percent gain that analysts had been forecasting. The strength last month came from a 2.6 percent rebound in auto sales, which had fallen for three consecutive months after surging in July.

Analysts said the November sales performance provided support for retailers' hopes that a rebound in job growth and falling gasoline prices will put shoppers in a buying mood in the closing weeks of the holiday season.

[Ready4Change]

19. Fascinating.

I wonder what triggered the AP to change their headline?

[AndyTiedye]

20. KKKarl Must Have Made Them Rewrite That Article

[Arugula Latte]

17. Move along, America's economy is booming, nothing to see here

Everything is hunky dory and Freedom is on the March! The massively rich are getting their tax cuts so in no time, yep, no time at all, they'll trickle down onto all of us.

[PurityOfEssence]

18. But...but...they wuz HUGE

I bin readin' for a long time, an' all the bigees said it was GREAT. What's the deal?

[dapper]

21. Shopping..

A few nights last week I went to the shopping mall and it seemed unusually empty. I have never seen it so quiet. Granted many people such as myself are ordering online but ... it still amazed me not be be fighting through the crowd.

Dap

[llmart]

26. I did what little Christmas shopping I am inclined to do.....

all online this year. I'm sorry - I just can't stand being among the idiots you find out there this time of year buying crap that no one needs that will end up at next year's garage sale and bought on credit because if they had to pay cash they wouldn't be able to.

[TexasLawyer]

27. gas prices

a lot of my Christmas went into my gas tank.

Merry Christmas, Exxon

[Pharlo]

28. David Wessel of 'The Wall Street Journal'

is one of the few 'pundits' whom I have seen publicly acknowledge a discrepancy between the official and actual versions of the economy (and the reasons for it) on TV, and that was on 'Washington Week in Review' last week.

So why are people so upset? And I think that's a--I think there are a couple of reasons. One is wages aren't going up. For a lot of people, they're not seeing this. Second thing, gas prices are coming down, but they're still high. Third thing, almost every worker's feeling the pain of higher health costs. This is the time of year when your employer tells you that your premiums are going up and you're going to get a little less for it. And, finally, the president turned out to be a very effective communicator on Social Security. He convinced everybody out there that the program is bankrupt, and he wasn't able to do anything about it. And then we get GM and Delphi and the airlines cutting their pensions...

http://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/transcripts/transcript051209.html

As low key as this is, it struck me as momentous because it was the first time I had observed an actual acknowledgement by someone not labeled a 'flaming liberal' by the mainstream media.

[Judi Lynn]

29. Jeee-zzzusss would want us to shop far more.

Jee-zzuss would want us to shop until Dubya's economy was humming.



You can never have too much stuff.