Isn’t 3.6 or even 2.7% on top of a good year pretty good?
I’d rather have a small increase year after year than a big increase over a poor year.
The Whistler - 07:12pm on 12/25/2007
This may be the most stunningly illogical rationalization...well, of the day, at least.
Gas prices are excluded because they’re up over 25% over last year. The “growth” isn’t about greater consumption, but about far, far greater inflationary pressure on one specific, highly used commodity.
I am, however, a fan of the jab at the Times’ stock. After all, the overall health of our economy is irrelevant as long as a newspaper you hate is doing poorly. I also heard that your ex-girlfriend only got a 1.5% raise this year, so the housing market is crazy healthy!
Starscream - 08:12pm on 12/25/2007
This must be the MSM’s announcement of their climb-onboard the Liberal agenda bus.
Liberals gave themselves 3rd degree burns after they declared we had lost the war then used every low-life trick in their handbags to cut our troops funds and that we couldn’t trust the military to tell us the truth when the situation was actually improving there.
Lose a war to gain the White House...that seemed like a good idea to do for themselves at the time.
So, now they’ve fallen back on a tried and true subject they know they don’t have to be correct in throwing mud on the economy as it can be twisted so easily to confuse and mislead...or at least they can’t be proven so pathetically and disloyally wrong again anyway.
Anyone remember their old rallying cry? “It’s about the economy, stupid!”
Winghunter - 08:12pm on 12/25/2007
Never mind that, with higher prices, less is more? We did not take the higher gas prices in stride. We bought significantly less gas at a higher price.
When you buy into the idea of surveying credit card companies as an economic indicator, you start entering the land of false promises. Credit Card Failures
Reading between the lines, people have decided that, since they’re going to lose it all anyway, they might as well have a merry Christmas. Along with the recently passed mortgage bailout for the banks, look for a credit card company bail out.
This translates into they lost, so you lose, and they win.
ews48 - 09:12pm on 12/25/2007
Excluding gasoline purchases is simply wrong. There is increased holiday driving, and last year was similar. If you want to exclude gasoline purchases, do it every year, then make the comparison. Otherwise this is just more leftie lying propaganda.
They try to jigger the figures to fit their agenda.
robert108 - 09:12pm on 12/25/2007
This may be the most stunningly illogical rationalization...well, of the day, at least.
Gas prices are excluded because they’re up over 25% over last year. The “growth” isn’t about greater consumption, but about far, far greater inflationary pressure on one specific, highly used commodity.
But those gas purchases are still retail purchases, no? And even without the gas, there was still growth.
Plus, Robert108 is right. The article removes the gas sales from this year’s numbers and then compares those numbers to last year’s which include gas sales.
That’s not a fair comparison.
I agree, either compare with the gas prices or without. But either way, the economic picture isn’t that grim at all. We dealt with the high gas prices, and still saw economic growth.
That’s a resilient economy.
Rob - 11:12pm on 12/25/2007
By the way, EWS, the credit card companies are a perfectly acceptable way to analyze this data. A lot of people do their shopping via credit card even when they don’t have to. That doesn’t mean they’re running up debt. For the vast majority, credit card debt is paid off at the end of each monthly cycle.
And also, there’s a lot of people who use debit cards as well. Personally, I don’t have any credit cards, but I have two debit cards for two different bank accounts. One is through Visa, the other is through Master Card. Every transaction I do on my debit cards goes through one of those companies, but I’m not running up any debt. It only spends money I already have.
I, personally, like that because I don’t like running a balance on a credit card. And there’s a lot of people out there like that these days.
Rob - 11:12pm on 12/25/2007
ews48 - Reading between the lines, people have decided that, since they’re going to lose it all anyway, they might as well have a merry Christmas.
So what do you do when “reading between the lines” gives one the same picture for the last 30 or so years?
likwidshoe - 04:12am on 12/26/2007
You will notice that these numbers DO NOT include the friggin weekend before Christmas! I mean the busiest shopping weekend of the whole season and they don’t include the numbers.
Our MSM with their Communist Agenda is so dedicated to throwing us into a recession in time for the elections, they just may do it.
The MSM has gone past annoying. They have become dangerous.
And when they final numbers for the whole season come out and they look great, we won’t hear a peep about that.
Bill Mitchell - 04:12am on 12/26/2007
The 11th-hour rush helped strengthen a weak holiday season. From the day after Thanksgiving to midnight Monday, total retail sales, excluding automobiles, rose 3.6% over the previous year, according to MasterCard SpendingPulse, a unit of MasterCard Advisors.
Oops, my bad, I guess they do include the last weekend before Christmas. I read another article that said they didn’t.
One other thing. Many many people nowadays use their Debit Cards to make purchases (I know I do). Does this study reflect those? If not you are probably missing an extra 2-3% there.
Isn’t 3.6 or even 2.7% on top of a good year pretty good?
I’d rather have a small increase year after year than a big increase over a poor year.
This may be the most stunningly illogical rationalization...well, of the day, at least.
Gas prices are excluded because they’re up over 25% over last year. The “growth” isn’t about greater consumption, but about far, far greater inflationary pressure on one specific, highly used commodity.
I am, however, a fan of the jab at the Times’ stock. After all, the overall health of our economy is irrelevant as long as a newspaper you hate is doing poorly. I also heard that your ex-girlfriend only got a 1.5% raise this year, so the housing market is crazy healthy!
This must be the MSM’s announcement of their climb-onboard the Liberal agenda bus.
Liberals gave themselves 3rd degree burns after they declared we had lost the war then used every low-life trick in their handbags to cut our troops funds and that we couldn’t trust the military to tell us the truth when the situation was actually improving there.
Lose a war to gain the White House...that seemed like a good idea to do for themselves at the time.
So, now they’ve fallen back on a tried and true subject they know they don’t have to be correct in throwing mud on the economy as it can be twisted so easily to confuse and mislead...or at least they can’t be proven so pathetically and disloyally wrong again anyway.
Anyone remember their old rallying cry? “It’s about the economy, stupid!”
Never mind that, with higher prices, less is more? We did not take the higher gas prices in stride. We bought significantly less gas at a higher price.
When you buy into the idea of surveying credit card companies as an economic indicator, you start entering the land of false promises. Credit Card Failures
Reading between the lines, people have decided that, since they’re going to lose it all anyway, they might as well have a merry Christmas. Along with the recently passed mortgage bailout for the banks, look for a credit card company bail out.
This translates into they lost, so you lose, and they win.
Excluding gasoline purchases is simply wrong. There is increased holiday driving, and last year was similar. If you want to exclude gasoline purchases, do it every year, then make the comparison. Otherwise this is just more leftie lying propaganda.
They try to jigger the figures to fit their agenda.
But those gas purchases are still retail purchases, no? And even without the gas, there was still growth.
Plus, Robert108 is right. The article removes the gas sales from this year’s numbers and then compares those numbers to last year’s which include gas sales.
That’s not a fair comparison.
I agree, either compare with the gas prices or without. But either way, the economic picture isn’t that grim at all. We dealt with the high gas prices, and still saw economic growth.
That’s a resilient economy.
By the way, EWS, the credit card companies are a perfectly acceptable way to analyze this data. A lot of people do their shopping via credit card even when they don’t have to. That doesn’t mean they’re running up debt. For the vast majority, credit card debt is paid off at the end of each monthly cycle.
And also, there’s a lot of people who use debit cards as well. Personally, I don’t have any credit cards, but I have two debit cards for two different bank accounts. One is through Visa, the other is through Master Card. Every transaction I do on my debit cards goes through one of those companies, but I’m not running up any debt. It only spends money I already have.
I, personally, like that because I don’t like running a balance on a credit card. And there’s a lot of people out there like that these days.
ews48 - Reading between the lines, people have decided that, since they’re going to lose it all anyway, they might as well have a merry Christmas.
So what do you do when “reading between the lines” gives one the same picture for the last 30 or so years?
You will notice that these numbers DO NOT include the friggin weekend before Christmas! I mean the busiest shopping weekend of the whole season and they don’t include the numbers.
Our MSM with their Communist Agenda is so dedicated to throwing us into a recession in time for the elections, they just may do it.
The MSM has gone past annoying. They have become dangerous.
And when they final numbers for the whole season come out and they look great, we won’t hear a peep about that.
Oops, my bad, I guess they do include the last weekend before Christmas. I read another article that said they didn’t.
One other thing. Many many people nowadays use their Debit Cards to make purchases (I know I do). Does this study reflect those? If not you are probably missing an extra 2-3% there.