Interesting how the news media reports that retail sales were up in January, one percent over the previous month. Good news, I’m sure.
But what they aren’t taking particular note of is that January was DOWN 9.7% from last January.
2 thoughts on “Idle thought”
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There you go, spreading bad news, uh, reality, instead of happy news!
Actually I mentioned this because my actual idle thought is the stupid way economic statistics are reported — almost invariably against the same period one year ago. I believe they should be reported against a moving three (or five) year average adjusted for the change in the dollar (or against some other constant). Otherwise, reported as they are, these statistics are about 2% useful and often misleading. Last January was after the recession began in December 2007, so dropping 9.7% from last year might be even more important than it seems.
But who knows? Not us news readers.