LookieNoNookie -> RE: Unemployment continues to drop and other good news... (3/13/2013 8:16:21 PM)
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ORIGINAL: Yachtie FR Don't look Tazzy, your head might explode - via ZH - And it's getting better, when adjusted. In a news release that would have been blamed on delayed tax refunds and "the weather" if it was a miss, but confirms a stronger consumer if it beat, and denies everything Wal Mart was warning about regarding February sales, today's retail sales just came stronger than expected in both the headline print (+1.1%, on expectations of a +0.5% rise), the Ex-Autos (+1.0%, Exp. 0.5%), and the Ex-autos and gas (0.4%, Exp. 0.2%). All of this of course was on a seasonally-adjusted basis (more on this shortly). This was the biggest beat of expectations since October 2011, and the biggest monthly rise in five months. The number was driven by a 5.0% jump in gasoline station sales, a 1.8% increase in Miscellaneous store retailers, a 1.6% rise in non-store retailers and a 1.1% increase in the broad retail and food services category. Declines were noted in Furniture stores (-1.6%), Electronics and Appliance stores (-0.2%), and Sporting goods and music stores (-0.9%). So on the surface all was good. The seasonally adjusted surface. because the unadjusted headline number in February actually posted the first sequential decline since 2010, as retail sales declined from $382.4 billion to $381.0 billion: this was the first sequential decline in retail sales in the month of February in three years. Yet somehow the decline actually translated into a growth of $4.4 billion on an adjusted basis, meaning the entire beat was, once more, purely in the calendar adjustment. (emphasis added) Okay...sorry...I'm missing something here.... Retail sales actually FELL 1.4 BILLION (dollars) ...as in, people ACTUALLY purchased 1.4 BILLION fewer dollars of goods than the month preceding, yet "seasonally adjusted" sales rose. Sorry....(I'm just trying to grasp this)....sales in FACT fell...they were in real dollars, less than the previous month....but....they also rose. So, is that kinda like "The Consumer Price Index fell this month, less housing, energy and grains"? (Like, all the shit that pretty everyone much buys?). Is that kind of like...."Clinton ran a surplus, but paid off the debt, even as it in fact, rose, in some cases by ungodly amounts?" (I'm sorry...I was deemed slow in the 7th grade....can you help me on this....because I now understand how Clinton paid off the debt (Taz was quite clear on this)....he did it with "surpluses" but I guess I don't understand how when sales in mathematical reality....fall.....sales actually increased. (I skipped "New Math"....is that what this is?).
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