Nominal retail sales were up +0.6% in August. Meanwhile, July’s reading was revised downward by -0.3%. Since in July and August consumer inflation was up +0.6% and +0.4%, respectively, that means revised *real* retail sales rose +0.3% in July and +0.2% in August. This means that the net result over two months was lower than previously thought for the month of July alone.
Nevertheless real retails sales did establish a new record high, above any reading from before the pandemic:
Historically consumption has led employment (/2) by several months (albeit with lots of noise), and has an even closer relationship with aggregate hours (all shown YoY below):
Not a scientific survey, for what it’s worth; observed, the crowds in Target, Trader Joe’s, and Safeway have significantly lessened in the past couple of weeks. Something we saw in 1980 and again in 2008. A neighbor just told me that Craig’s List is listing office furniture for the taking in downtown SF. Starting to pinch.
Republicans should issue every citizen a citizen credit card with $200 per month credit. this could increase aggregate demand enough to increase our economy of scale, actually save us money.
how to pay for this without increasing the public debt? Tax real estate, all real property unimproved, and all improved real property should be taxed.
Mark Perry once said, “when you tax something you get less of it. sure! he’s right; but this does not apply to real estate. we will have the same number of square miles and the same number of acres in this country after the tax on real property is levied. it would increase our capacity utilization and prevent lot of sadness for poor people without taxing production out of business.
Los republicanos deben emitir a cada ciudadano una tarjeta de crédito ciudadana con un crédito de $ 200 por mes. esto podría incrementar la demanda agregada lo suficiente como para incrementar nuestra economía de escala, de hecho, ahorrarnos dinero.
¿Cómo pagar esto sin aumentar la deuda pública? Impuestos sobre bienes inmuebles, todos los bienes inmuebles no mejorados y todos los bienes inmuebles mejorados deben tributar.
Mark Perry dijo una vez: “cuando grabas algo, obtienes menos. ¡Seguro! Tiene razón; pero esto no se aplica a los bienes raíces. Tendremos la misma cantidad de millas cuadradas en la misma cantidad de acres en este país después de la Se aplica un impuesto sobre la propiedad inmobiliaria, lo que aumentaría la utilización de nuestra capacidad y evitaría mucha tristeza para los pobres sin gravar la producción fuera del negocio.
@Ken.
Some of that office furniture may be from big business realizing that work from home saves money. My wife’s employer, Anthem BC/BS, is planning to liquidate much of their holdings in office space. My wife is ecstatic because this means that she can work from home now all the way until her retirement.
My grocery shopping is declining because I will no longer have to host hungry hoards of in-laws from CT. They do Thxgiving and Xmas back home, but go south for Memorial, Independence, and Labor Days. With the beach resort situation this summer, then my backyard swimming pool was their getaway. People are getting back to restaurants a bit more now too.
NDD says: *real* retail sales rose +0.3% in July and +0.2% in August..
real retail sales as published by FRED is an impostor for real personal consumption of goods in national accounts…like a stopped clock, it can be right some of the time. this was not one of those times.
for the record, i am estimating real personal consumption of goods to be down 1.1% in August after rising a revised 1.3% in July…
the BEA will publish PCE for August in the Income and Outlay’s report on October 1st. you can check Table 7 in the “Full Release & Tables” anytime after 8:30 that morning to see if i’m right:
https://www.bea.gov/data/income-saving/personal-income