Retail sales drop 1.2 percent in May

[villager]

Source: AP

Retail sales drop 1.2 percent in May

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON – A big drop in May retail sales has raised new concerns about the durability of the economic recovery. Retail sales plunged 1.2 percent last month, the Commerce Department said Friday. It was the largest decline in eight months.

Americans slashed spending on everything from cars to clothing to building materials. Auto sales fell 1.7 percent. Excluding autos, sales fell 1.1 percent.

Economists are worried that households will start trimming outlays as they continue to be battered by high unemployment and uncertainty in the stock market. Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of total economic activity.

There's also concern that spending will freeze up as Americans see their wealth shrink. Investors have sold off stocks for more than a month because of concerns that Europe's sovereign debt crisis will slow a worldwide economic rebound. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 7.9 percent last month, the worst May for the blue chip index since 1940.

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Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100611/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/us_economy

[AndyA]

1. Hint to the Obama Administration: Without jobs, there will be no consumer spending.

Figure it out, guys, it's not that difficult.

We need JOBS. Not temporary jobs. Not jobs in India or Mexico. Jobs--here in America.

Offer tax breaks to employers who create jobs HERE. Give tax breaks for companies that bring jobs back from other countries.

Provide incentives to create jobs in America, and remove all tax breaks and incentives for American companies that ship jobs overseas, or move operations to other countries.

Start charging an import inspection fee on all that junk from China, to make sure it's safe and if it's edible, not tainted. Level out the playing field to make it less attractive to import goods from other countries.

Those steps alone would help the unemployment figures, and increase tax revenues.

[rzemanfl]

4. I wonder how much of the May retail spending was for Mother's

Day and stuff for the Memorial Day Holiday?

[OhioChick]

10. +1000 n/t

[aquart]

2. People all over the country realize the spill will affect them.

[xchrom]

3. What's retail norMally like in May? Is it usually busy? Nt

[Igel]

5. And, no less important:

Why the fixation on the ultra-short-term?

If you read using a card that allows one and only one word at a time to be displayed, unless you have a reading disability, you read much more slowly and retain less. It's far worse if you have a card that lets just one letter be visible at a time. But in reading the economic tea leave we want a card that only allows a portion of a letter to be visible at a time.

This week employment's up: Let's party like there's no tomorrow! We've saved! Hallelujah, Hallelu Allah, Hallelu Keynes. Whatever.

This week employment's down: Oh, shit! There is no tomorrow! We're doomed! Damn Jah, Allah, Keynes. Whatever.

What does this latest number mean? Dunno. Check back in 6 months. I dislike trying to project a line through two points, one a data point subject to several revisions and the other the peak of my current batch of neuroses in 39-space.

[liberation]

6. Corporate America operates only in short term...

[SILVER__FOX52]

7. The lack of leadership....

coming out of the Whitehouse is dumb founding. Here's a hint, assholes. The country is falling apart. Do something, putting people back to work and walking corporate power back or get the....fuck...out...of....office. You ignorant, Corporate whores! Any Questions??

[BootinUp]

8. Get ready for austerity

the repukes and conservadems won't be happy until they succeed in making the Great Depression part deaux a reality!

[killbotfactory]

9. Reduce the cost of living

Workers wages have remained basically flat, while cost of living and corporate profit have gone up. We are being fleeced. If we want to keep our current economy from collapsing people need money in their pockets. The only thing that has kept the economy going until the latest collapse has been cheap credit, and that time is ending.

Corporate wants us all to be paupers, but paupers can't buy their products.