Retail Sales in U.S. Fall Most in Three Years on Job Losses, Housing Woes

from Bloomberg:



U.S. Retail Sales Slump 1.2%, Most in Three Years (Update2)

By Bob Willis

Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Sales at U.S. retailers dropped in September by the most in three years as mounting job losses, plunging home prices and the deepening credit crisis rattled consumers.

Purchases fell 1.2 percent, more than forecast, following a 0.4 percent decline the prior month, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. Excluding autos, sales fell 0.6 percent, also more than anticipated.

The biggest decline in stock prices in at least seven decades last week may further undermine confidence, prompting consumers to cut back on non-essentials like new cars and vacations that will deepen the economic slump. Stock-index futures retreated.

``Consumers are hunkering down,'' said Brian Bethune, chief financial economist at Global Insight Inc. in Lexington, Massachusetts. ``The fourth quarter is guaranteed to be terrible.''

The Labor Department reported separately that prices paid to U.S. producers fell 0.4 percent in September, the second consecutive decline. So-called core producer prices that exclude fuel and food increased 0.4 percent. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York's Empire State manufacturing index fell to minus 24.6 in October, the most since the survey began in 2001, from 7.4 in September.

Three-Month Slide

September's drop, the largest since August 2005, extended declines in retail sales to three consecutive months, the first time that's happened since comparable records began in 1992.

Sales are slowing just as merchants prepare for the holiday selling season, which may account for as much as 35 percent of a retailer's revenue. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=axCzcG1d.YTg&refer=home

with good benefits, replacing them with service sector jobs and no benefits, and expect American workers to be able to purchase anything. I don't know why this is so difficult to understand.

:eyes:

Welcome to Globalization.

I have just been hearing or reading--almost ignored by global corporate media except for these little caption headline crawls on the bottom of cable "news" channel screens--several alarming reports, indications of deepening, severe recession, at least: (CNN, CNN Headline) a "study found" household expenses up 65% since 1996 (of course, wages and fixed-income amounts have not risen at all or have fallen), American households paying an average of $5,218 more per year for such ordinary living expenses as food, mortgage/rent, utilities and other bills, etc. The economy keeps losing millions of good jobs each year, and is only replacing them with "poverty-level wage jobs which do not pay enough to cover the cost of living." The unemployment level is much higher than claimed, and has been for many years; they all (since Reagan) falsely remove categories of people, so they can present a fake impression that things are better than they are. Kevin Phillips was just explaining this on BookTV with new book: there are Unemployment levels 1, 2, 3, 4, etc., and only the lower--2, I think--is used, which is a false-low number; the Gov't knows the real, higher, but does not put it out. A new report that retail sales dropped by twice as much "as expected" (by Bush Admin.?) over the past month; and that all signs now point to current, and deepening recession.

These people have not paid any attention to the unemployment figures, or what kinds of crappy, low-pay/no-benefits/no-pension jobs are being created, or that people work two jobs as a norm now, for many years; they only, only cover the fucking stock/commodities market and the financial world, which is not even the real economy. Often, the stock market goes up precisely BECAUSE they are killing/cutting/outsourcing our jobs; corporate profits have never, since the 1920s, been higher, and a higher percentage of the Gross Domestic Product--and wages never lower since the '20s--they often go together, so that a "great" stock market is proof that things are being dismantled and destroyed in the real job market here. Many indicators have been bad for a long time, such as falling purchases, etc., but totally ignored as we get this phony shit about how "thrilled" and "relieved" they are that the corporate-welfare bailout "worked" (even though their precious, disconnected stock market is falling now again because people do not have money to keep an economy going by making purchases). This is the real economy--jobs, retail sales, personal/family debt for real needed items purchased--and it is all bad.

Gotta love that optimism. :eyes: