Posted on 07/16/2012 6:12:15 AM PDT by Qbert
Americans cut their spending at retail businesses for a third straight month, as a weak job market has made consumers more cautious.
Retail sales fell 0.5 percent in June from May, the Commerce Department said Monday. Consumers spent less on autos, furniture, appliances, on building and garden supplies and at department stores.
The drop in sales followed declines in the previous two months. Retail sales haven't fallen for three straight months since the fall of 2008, at the height of the financial crisis.
Some of the weakness in recent months reflects falling gas prices. But even excluding sales at gas stations, retail spending fell 0.3 percent in June from May.
Consumers are growing less confident in the economy and have pulled back sharply on spending this spring. Consumer spending drives 70 percent of economic activity.
The economy is expanding too slowly to lower the unemployment rate, which stayed at 8.2 percent in June.
Employers have created an average of just 75,000 jobs a month in the April-June quarter — a third of the monthly job growth during the previous three months. And wages and salaries have barely increased, keeping budgets tight for those Americans who have jobs.
(Excerpt) Read more at moneynews.com ...
"Retail sales haven't fallen for three straight months since the fall of 2008"...
unexpected, of course
Expected code for he is fuc^ed.
Double dip recession here we come.
Has made consumers more cautious
Whenever news like this comes out early in the week, it seems like the administration bean counters (i.e. economic propagandists) cook up some ‘encouraging numbers’ to counter with later in the week - only to be revised later. If we truly had honesty and openness in government we would all have access to the raw numbers on a real time basis, and could do our own calculations.
Check with Pelosi...she’ll have a solution.
Too many people ran out of unemployement benefits, doncha know?
They haven’t enough benefits to spend at the store.
Congress needs to rush passage and send to Obama a retroactive restoration of all the benefits people ran out of.
Problem solved.
/sarc
Time for QE..At least the $10 loaf of bread will be in line with the price of corn
"Whenever news like this comes out early in the week, it seems like the administration bean counters (i.e. economic propagandists) cook up some ‘encouraging numbers’ to counter with later in the week - only to be revised later."
Yep- and if that doesn't work, then they try to immediately change the subject (WAR ON WOMEN!, TRAYVON KILLED BY RACIST WHITE ZIMMERMAN FOR WEARING A HOODIE!, BAIN CAPITAL!!, etc.)
Wo cares, simple carbs are bad for you anyway.
Actully we are in a depression. Only food stamps and different accounting standards for unemployment from those used in the 1930s stop the people from noticing.
Obama is following Roosevelt’s template religiously.
Every time the economy has adapted to his lame socialist programs he says or does something new and unexpectedly stupid.
But Obama and the Dimocrats have something new and improved on the Roosevelt Template; a time released economic bomb namely Obama Care-new taxes and requirements set to go off every January 1 for years to come.
The economy will not improve until Obama is out of office and his time bomb is repealed.
That's why we have those wonderful people deciding what kind of cars we should drive, how much water our toilets should use, what kind of light bulbs we need, what our kids should learn about sex, what we should do (and pay for) about the climate, how accepting we should be of illegal aliens, that you should wear a helmet or a seatbelt, that we should pick your doctors and coverages for you, etc.
Trust me, ignorance is bliss. Too much information is a burden. Why would you want all those numbers? Isn't math harder than playing video games? Freedom and liberty can be such burdens, you'd have to make all kinds of decisions, accept all kinds of potentially bad consequences. So be happy, don't worry, we'll take care of everything. You just leave those silly old numbers to us... :-/
I have a couple sisters believe what you just posted,and they are college educated.
When a Republican's in office, good economic news is 'unexpected'. Not that the effing Press, New York Times, AP or the rest of them are biased, corrupt and blind to their favoritism... /s
...........and it takes time to transition to Disability paychecks
Yep. And who can forget the relentless attacks on the “Worst Economy Since Herbert Hoover” in 2006... when the unemployment rate was 4.8%?
And now fuel prices are creeping back up, just when people were thinking it might be safe to take a vacation.
Gas prices always go up during holidays and summer vacations.
What is unexpected to me is that people have spent less on gardening supplies. Of course the numbers probably include all the high priced outdoor items like patio furniture, lawn equipment and decorative container plants. I would bet the basic gardening sales like vegetable seeds and spades have increased. It's also interesting that even with people still buying graduation gifts, June wedding gifts, cars for teens and packing your kid off to college expenses have not offset the overall spending numbers.
Back to School shopping is starting and will continue for several weeks. It will be interesting to see how it fits in with things.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.