You may have heard the standard Wall Street storyline about bad weather from December through March depressing consumers and keeping them from spending money they don’t have on shit they don’t need. The corporate mainstream media obligingly regurgitates the storyline in order to maintain their advertising revenue from Wall Street and corporate America.
Did you notice all that snow in April? How else can we explain the disastrous retail sales numbers reported this morning? Maybe the temperatures were too moderate to shop. Maybe the pollen storms created an allergy to shopping. Maybe it was those nasty Spring showers bringing May flowers. Watching the nimrods, economist hacks, bimbos and boobs on bubblevision attempting to spin the decline of the American consumer is priceless. They reveal themselves to be nothing but captured teleprompter readers. Journalism is dead in the corporate media realm. The only truth is found in the blogosphere.
Below is a chart that doesn’t even reveal how bad the numbers really are. The country is in the midst of a recession as markets reach all-time highs. This fact alone unveils the criminality of the Federal Reserve and their sole purpose of propping up and enriching their owners on Wall Street. The suffering and impoverishment of average Americans is revealed in the true jobs numbers, credit card usage, and retail sales. The entire house of debt is built upon Americans accounting for 68% of GDP by buying shit. If they don’t borrow and spend, the shark dies. This shark looks sick.
Of course the numbers they report are sliced, diced, adjusted, and massaged to achieve a happy ending. And still they sucked. Total retail sales didn’t budge in April versus March. A big fat 0% increase. Auto sales fell. Furniture sales plummeted. Electronics sales fell. Grocery store sales fell. Department store sales crashed (bye bye JC Penney & Sears). To demonstrate the ridiculousness of the government “adjustments” they said gasoline station sales fell by 0.7%. The national price of gasoline soared by 7.5% in April. Their adjustments are pure crap.
Now for some observations about the unadjusted numbers:
- Last year the unadjusted numbers dropped by $1.5 billion from March to April. This year they dropped by $7.5 billion, a 500% decrease. Spin about Easter is just bullshit.
- Their bullshit adjustments are used to explain month over month changes, but the year over year numbers can’t be ignored. Total retail sales were up only 0.7% over last April. With even government reported inflation running at 2.2%, REAL retail sales are falling hard.
- When you remove the subprime debt goosed auto sales, retail sales have actually FALLEN by 0.4% year over year.
- Year over year: furniture, grocery, and clothing stores are flat. Department stores, electronics stores and gasoline stations are down. This means they are all negative on an inflation adjusted basis. This means awful retail profits going forward. This means more store closings and more people out of jobs.
- On an adjusted basis, even auto sales FELL in April. Have they run out of clueless broke dupes to dole out 7 year 0% loans to? Or are the bad debts piling up at such a rate that risk aversion is beginning to set in?
- If the weather was the cause of the retail slowdown, why have internet sales gone stagnant? They are flat for the last three months.
- The best year to date results are for restaurants. I attribute this to two factors. People are so depressed with their shitty lives, they are drinking themselves into oblivion and/or the price of food just happens to be up 10% over last year, so restaurants are just passing that along. WINNING!!!
First quarter GDP was negative. The fourth quarter was juiced by inventory building, Obamacare cost increases, and higher utility costs to keep people from freezing to death. The Atlanta Fed model is down to 0.7% second quarter GDP. The only people not experiencing a recession already are Wall Street, Washington DC, and the parasites who leech off the oligarchs robbing this country blind. Retail sales are in free fall at the same rate they were falling in 2008. Look out below. It’s gonna get ugly.
“But you can’t make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. It can’t last.” ― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
As I have had to repeatedly point out: Corrected for sun spot activity retail sales, employment, GDP are way up.
Good work, Admin and oh-so true.
It looks like the official declaration of recession may not be that far away.
Under reported economic good news as yard and garage sales are booming…all that we bought for $$$ can now be had for cents. Thinking I will score big on the Beanie Babies I scored once I get these damn tags off.
Good analysis, jim. And even the blogosphere is corrupted. One of the key tells l look for now is a mention of uber. Bought and paid. So neat. So nice
Dismal Retail Sales Numbers Suggest Recession Likely Underway: Overall +0.0%, YoY +0.9%, Department Stores -2.2%
Economists were surprised by the dismal retail sales report this morning. That’s not surprising because economists are nearly always surprised.
The Bloomberg Consensus retail sales estimate was a rise of 0.2%, but sales came in at 0.0% and the details were ugly, emphasis mine.
Consumer confidence may be strong but it still is not translating to strength for consumer spending. Retail sales were unchanged in April vs Econoday expectations for a 0.2 percent gain. Excluding autos, sales did rise but only barely at plus 0.1 and below expectations for 0.5 percent, while excluding both autos and gasoline, sales rose 0.2 percent vs expectations for a 0.4 percent gain.
The surprising part of the report isn’t the weakness in motor vehicles, which was signaled by weak unit sales and which fell 0.4 percent in the month, but weakness in some of the core readings including department stores which fell a very steep 2.2 percent and electronics & appliances which fell 0.4 percent for a 7th straight decline. Both furniture and food & beverages also show declines.
Year-on-year rates show just how weak growth in the retail sector has been. Total retail sales are up only 0.9 percent year-on-year, down from 1.7 percent in March. This is the lowest rate since late 2009. Excluding motor vehicles, year-on-year sales are unchanged, again the lowest reading since late 2009. Ex-auto ex-gas, sales are up a respectable 3.4 percent but, compared to 3.9 percent in March, are going in the wrong direction.
Estimated Retail Sales
Note the huge patch of negative numbers this month. At least people are still eating out and drinking more.
Also note the negative numbers in the November 2014 through January 2015 column.
Economists expected the decline in gasoline sales (down 7.2%) to translate into increased sales elsewhere. It didn’t.
I am scratching my head over Bloomberg’s statement “consumer confidence may be strong …”. What the heck is Bloomberg talking about?
Does Bloomberg even read its own numbers? Here is a snip from the Bloomberg Consumer Confidence Level Report for April 2015, released on 4/28/2015.
Consumer confidence has fallen back noticeably this month, down more than 6 points to a much lower-than-expected 95.2. This compares very poorly with the Econoday consensus for 103.0 and is even far below the Econoday low estimate of 100.5. The weakness, ominously, is the result of falling assessments of the jobs market, both the current jobs market and expectations for the future jobs market. The second quarter, which is expected to be much stronger than the weather-depressed first quarter, isn’t likely to get off to a fast start, at least as far as this report goes.
The most striking weakness in April is the assessment of future conditions with the expectations component down 8.5 points to 87.5 for the weakest reading going all the way back to September. And the most striking weakness among the sub-components is employment, where fewer see more jobs opening up 6 months from now and more see fewer jobs available. This spills over into income where fewer see an increase ahead and more see a decrease.
But also weak is the present situation component which is down more than 2-1/2 points to 106.8 for its weakest reading since December.
The Fed is not looking at those numbers either. In the latest FOMC report the Fed specifically stated “consumer sentiment remains high”.
I mocked the Fed on April 29 in Fed Cites Weather, “Transitory” Factors in FOMC Statement; What About Consumer Sentiment?
Autos Only Reason YoY Sales Are Positive
Autos are now the only thing keeping retail sales positive year-over-year. And auto sales are driven by subprime loans. How long is this party going to last?
Who wants a car, needs a car, can afford a car, and can get a car loan?
Retail Sales Flashbacks
•January 14 – Economists Still Upbeat: Retail Sales Drop Seen as “Blip”
•February 13 – Economists Blame Weather: Retail Sales “Unexpectedly” Decline; December Revised Lower, GDP Estimates Follow.
•April 14 – Experts Confounded: Retail Sales Rise First Time in Four Months, But Weaker Than Expected.
Household Spending Growth Expectations Plunge; Recession Already Started?
Every month the Fed does a Survey of Consumer Expectations for inflation, earnings growth, income growth, and consumer spending growth.
Yesterday, I stuck my neck out regarding consumer spending projections: Household Spending Growth Expectations Plunge; Recession Already Started?
This is what I said yesterday…
Spending Analysis
In spite of rising earnings and income estimates, “median household spending growth expectations retreated significantly from the last month” in the Fed’s words.
Should these spending projections prove to be correct, a US recession that few if any economists see coming, has already started.
The Fed’s own survey shows spending sentiment is weak. The data shows how weak. Amusingly, the Fed says “consumer sentiment remains high”.
And Bloomberg does not believe its own sentiment numbers either.
Following today’s report, I move my position from a recession may have started to a recession is now likely underway.
I suspect economists and the Fed will still believe it’s “transitory”. If so, look for the term “technical recession” because no one seems to believe it. Heck, they do not even believe their own data.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
What’s even worse is those numbers are phony baloney. Wait till the revisions come out.
Sensetti–Just as the term Depression was substituted for Panic, the term Recession will be substituted with a more innocuous term.
As was said. “We’re not in a Panic. We’re in, merely, a Depression.” circa 1930 hahaha!
“Tell a lie often enough and it will become the truth…” Yada, Yada, Yada!
starfcker–Even the revision is a lie.
I want to thank JC Penny for all the great deals. $10 off coupon for a $10 item. It makes Madman Muntz look like a piker.
“We lose money on every sale, but we make it up on the volume.”–Madman Muntz
“”I buy ’em retail and sell ’em wholesale … it’s more fun that way!”–Madman Muntz
I’m happy as long as JC Penny keeps giving me free stuff. A great business model, but I’m shorting JC penny stock. hahaha!
The Great Recession never really ended, all we’ve done as a country is pile on the debt and shuffle our feet nervously hoping nobody will notice.
Earnings are up because of stock buybacks. Fewer shares=
Earnings are up because of stock buybacks. Few shares equals higher earnings per share. If the Fed raises rates, watch out. The interest expense associated with a rate increase will explode teh deficit. Everywhere you go…things are on sale. Simply too much capacity and not enough demand and that’s on a global basis. Incomes are stagnant but wait….unemployment is down to 5.4%. This is all a charade. Politicians all over the world for the past 50 years have been afraid to say NO. They wanted to keep their cushy jobs and so they provided entitlements to just about every breathing human. It’s now getting real and everybody is starting to get really scared.