From the Wall Street Journal:
In an ominous sign for the holiday shopping season, American consumers behaved like skinflints in August, focusing on bare necessities and budget-priced deals as they made back-to-school purchases.
Shoppers spent slightly more last month than they had the year before, according to MasterCard Advisors, which crunches data from credit cards, checks and cash payments to form sales estimates. But in nearly every category, the sales numbers were far short of 2008 levels, indicating the economic recovery remains sluggish…
That last should actually say “indicating the economic recovery remains a figment of Bernanke’s imagination”. Who has money to spend right now? For those who do, who is willing to greatly extend themselves when the next couple of months might bring economic collapse and spreading unemployment?
Get ready for a grim rest-of-the-year, and then a miserable 2011 as the Bush tax cuts expire and put yet more downward pressure on the economy.
HAT TIP: Mish’s
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