Retail sales and the dollar plunge, while oil prices surge anewWASHINGTON — Oil hit a record high, the dollar sank again, and consumers stopped buying pretty much everything.
The Commerce Department reported that consumers, battered by falling home values, job losses, soaring energy costs and a severe credit squeeze, stopped going to the malls in February, triggering a 0.6 percent drop in retail sales.
That was the second big drop in retail sales in the past three months, a pattern consistent with the onset of a recession
Really is that alarmist language, “plunged”, “stopped going to the mall”, “onset of a recession”, justified by a measly 6 tenths of a percent in retail sales in February. After all February was a very cold month and that could have kept some shoppers home. I doubt it helped sales because people probably have already bought their winter stuff.
If the story was only flawed that way it would be bad enough. But the fact is they got their facts wrong altogether by cherry picking the data:
The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for February, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $380.2 billion, a decrease of 0.6 percent (±0.5%) from the previous month, but 2.6 percent (±0.7%) above February 2007. Total sales for the December 2007 through February 2008 period were up 3.3 percent (±0.5%) from the same period a year ago. The December 2007 to January 2008 percent change was revised from +0.3 percent (±0.5%)* to +0.4 percent (±0.2%).
Got that? Retail sales were actually up over last years February and sales for December thru February were up 3.3% over the same months the year before. Those aren’t bad numbers particularly coming on healthy numbers from last year. I’d rather be up a modest amount over a strong year than up big over a weak year.
The bottom line is that this story was chock full of distortions. The facts are there for anyone to find. If they can’t make their case without lying then they obviously have no case and more importantly cannot be counted on to ever tell the truth. Shame on the Associated Press and lesser shame on the Grand Forks Herald for giving them space in their newspaper.