Unsurprisingly, the most significant high frequency indicator of the week was the 10% YoY increase in consumer spending as measured by Redbook. Despite all of the chaos and own-goals emanating out of Washington, the economy is incredibly resilient. II continue to worry that nearly the only driving force is what looks like a Bubble in […]

 – by New Deal democrat Well, I was working on one nerdy long-term historical post this morning, when I decided to check the weekly update on consumer spending from Redbook. And, as you’ll see below, that was the end of that! (I may yet follow up this afternoon. We’ll see.) Last week, Redbook consumer spending was […]

 – by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. In the aggregate, consumer spending remains robust. On the other hand, as I pointed out yesterday with my aggregation of the various regional Fed reports on manufacturing and services, the largest sector of the US economy appears to be stagnant or even shrinking […]

– by New Deal democrat Retail sales is the first of two very important indicators we got this morning. Per yesterday, with employment growth “dead in the water” since April, consumer spending – which leads future employment – is the single most crucial element of a turning point.   It really is incredible how it takes a […]

Consumer spending continues OK, while income continues its seemingly relentless decline Nominally personal income rose 0.5%, and spending rose 0.2% in February. That’s the good news.  The bad news is the personal consumption deflator, i.e., the relevant measure of inflation, rose 0.6%, so real income declined -01%, and real personal spending declined -0.4%. While both […]

Consumers still spend, but real income declines, leaving them increasingly vulnerable to price shocks Nominal personal income was unchanged in January, while spending rose 2.1%. In real terms after inflation, personal income declined -0.5%, and personal consumption expenditures rose 1.5%, completely reversing December’s decline, and adding about 0.2%. I have stopped comparing them with their […]

Real average and aggregate wages continue decline in November; a sharp deceleration in the consumer sector now appears likely As you may already know, consumer prices increased 0.8% in November. In the past two months, there has been a re-acceleration in CPI, with the monthly numbers equal to earlier this year and the worst since […]

The consumer spending spree continued in October, New Deal democrat Real personal income and spending held up well throughout the pandemic, due to a vigorous government response. With special benefits ended, the question has been: will they hold up? This month, the answer was a definite “yes.”In nominal terms, personal income increased 0.5% and spending […]

Producer sector remains on fire, while two most important indicators of consumer sector falter As has been the pattern for the last several months, August data started out with a strong reading on manufacturing, while July ended with weak data on housing construction. As a side note, the latest read on motor vehicle sales also […]

The cost of hand-to-mouth living – Financial Times: A few weeks ago, when I was chatting with the head of one of America’s largest food and drink companies, he made a revealing comment about data flows. Like most consumer groups, this particular company is currently spending a lot of money to monitor its customers with […]