Retail Sales Dip 0.3 Percent in January

[NNN0LHI]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=716&e=3&u=/ap/20040212/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/economy

WASHINGTON - America's shoppers slowed down in the post-holiday month of January, depressing sales at the nation's retailers by 0.3 percent.

The decline — the first since September — was reported by the Commerce Department (news - web sites) Thursday. It largely reflected a sharp drop in sales of automobiles. When auto sales — which tend to swing widely from month to month — are removed, sales at all other merchants rose by a strong 0.9 percent in January — the biggest gain in five months.

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[nwohiodemocrat]

1. Can't pick and choose

Entertaining spin on this economy thing "without the drop in auto sales retail sales up a strong 0.9%". Well, sorry for the wakeup call, but the auto industry is a huge component. What's next? Are we going to hear the talking heads talk about how the economy grew at 150% next month followed with a disclaimer that states "based on Janet Jackson's new CD"? The entire number without exclusions is what is important!

[sendero]

2. I agree...

... they always try to spin the numbers. If autos were way up, they'd be saying "well a lot of that gain was from autos and that is a very good sign of future growth".

I also get torqued when the "volatile food and energy sectors" are factored out of CPI numbers. For God's sake, food and energy are the most basic and important expenditures many of us make. Energy in particular is very telling since its price will be factored into the cost of producing and transporting goods.

[ProfessorGAC]

3. Here's The Greatest Economic Spin of All Time!

Jobless Recovery:

Here's the problem with that canard. The people who use that term are limited in their thinking to two simple dimensions and no effort to see more deeply. The thing is, employment is not an artifact of the macroeconomy. It's an outcome! One cannot have good macroeconomic health, no matter the growth rate of GDP, if the employment is not trending toward saturation. There are too many extrinsic elements of GDP to look at it as a stand-alone indicator. There are several critical outputs of the economy that must be taken as a set and reviewed in that way. To do any less, is to invite the nonsense of this most recent economic fairy-tale "The Jobless Recovery".

If one understands that the creation of jobs, the increasing of the median national income, and growth (among others) are all critical equals, one would not use such a stupid term. This is clearly a made up, SPIN term to obfuscate the fact that the economy is really not getting better in a statistically significant way.
The Professor

[malachi]

4. Jobless Claims Up

confounding analysts, who had predicted an improving job market and expected a dip to 345,000 new claims.
How does one apply to be an analyst? Obviously knowledge of your area of supposed expertise is not a prerequisite. These clowns haven't been right in a looooonnnngggg time.

http://money.iwon.com/ht/nw/bus/20040212/hl_bus-n12458632.html?PG=home&SEC=news