Yesterdays headline seasonally adjusted retail sales number was wrong.
“December’s year to year gain in real retail sales excluding gasoline per capita was +4.9%. Remember, this excludes inflation.”
“December actual, not seasonally adjusted retail sales rose by $62.9 billion or 14.2% month to month. Obviously December is always an up month, so to get a feel for how good or how bad that number is, we merely need to compare it to December in years past. This December was better than both December 2012 and 2013, which both rose by 12.5%.”
Financial News Media Reporting On Retail Sales So Bad, It’s Laughable
All major economic numbers from the government are seasonally adjusted and they always end up with swings above and below the actual number. The employment numbers are particularly bad in this regard and everyone runs around like their hair is on fire for half a day regurgitating the fictitious numbers and running off to the wrong conclusions, until next month.
As retail sales are rising, like it or not, so too are withholding taxes which may be the best real time number to gauge things as the number comes out weekly. Withholding tax receipts have been rising at a 4+% rate too.
None of which is to call ou or into question the major issues discussed here daily. It’s just that it is wrong to say the real people, real jobs real purchasing economy is contracting.
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