January was a good month for retail sales:
Retail spending recovered from its dip in December and is now almost back to its post-pandemic trendline. No matter what people may tell pollsters about how they feel, money talks. And money says the economy remains in pretty good shape.
Great. I bet that means we can expect a bad inflation report again next month.
To the extent this: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/15/producer-price-index-january-2022-.html (sent to Kevin, for what it is worth) is a harbinger, certainly.
I'm certainly not a fan of inflation (who is, save highly indebted persons with COLAs?), but I'm somewhat insulated from economic conditions in the US because I live abroad. By far my biggest concern is the political impact of inflation. The White House party always faces headwinds in midterms, but Americans really seem to be freaked out about rising prices. Things could get very ugly for Democrats if they don't get some better reports soon (from what I understand the electorate's perception of economic conditions becomes increasingly calcified as we pass the mid year mark; so a marked improvement that arrives in the fall may be too late).
Also, the persistence of troublingly high inflation, needless to say, increases the odds that a recession arrives before November of 2024. And that, for obvious reasons, would be a disaster.
Amazing that all the "inflation" and "price gouging" doesn't seem to actually be stopping overall spending. It's almost as if overall rising prices aren't a real problem, but just a convenient club for Republicans (and DINOs like Manchin) to beat Biden and Democrats with.
Indeed. It's clearly bad news for Joe Biden and the Democrats. 🙁
Austin and Kevin are completely right. The media pound pound pound on Biden and ring doom-and-gloom 24/7. So people feel bad, even though things are objectively good for most of us.
The media want Trump back so bad it hurts.
They want El Jefe, his corporate taxcuts, & their bookdeals back.
Sleepy Joe is the worst thing to happen to the Lamestream Media since Cesar Sayoc, Jr.
I was wondering where the money and desire is coming from....
But we never fully recovered from the great recession--in 2020, 25% of the cars on the road were over 16.
We've had the stimulus money sloshing about--but that's about spent so....minimum wage increases and baby boom retirements. Small increases in earnings, especially at the lower end of the scale, means more spending. More retirements? Boomers have been squirreling away money into their 401K's, now they're not and they get checks for unused sick/vacation days to spend. The market correction means spending retiree spending may drop next month.
One other effect--with inflation up, people might spend now before prices get even higher.
Somewhere out there I suspect there are stats on personal debt…
Yes, it is going up--but that's for Kevin to properly plot up 😉
Coming soon, to a supermarket near you: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/02/16/business-food/kraft-price-hikes/index.html
Another whiff of inflation
Democrats alway focus on the poor and forget that there is such a thing as the upper middle class (50%) who are driving this spending. We’re fine.
Well, corporate spending is high as well(too high in my estimation)
So this is great. People have all they need and are getting it whenever they desire. Why, then, do we need a recession to deal with some price increases?
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/02/federal-reserve-minutes-hike-more-aggressive-march-meeting.html
"Is a recession the only way to stop inflation?"
We're going to put a bunch of people out of work and drive some businesses into bankruptcy because... people keep buying stuff? We complain that people are poor and that they need good paying jobs. Then when they get that income, we complain that they are spending it and want to get them fired.
Crazy.
Here's why this is bad news for joebiden.
(The Sulzberger Advertiser put the great economic performance numbers on page B1, rather than A1, as would have been the case under the Maralago Qaliphate.)