Sales numbers do impress me. If the consumers are out in full force, how is that not impressive or at least a reasonable indicator of the direction of the economy?

I was looking at it strictly from a profit perspective so I see your point.

However me being the huge bitter cynic I am, I was referencing my depression era mother. I had her out shopping earlier last week and commented on the crowds. She reminded me that people *will* find a way to spend on Christmas and will deal with the consequences later.

I jumped to the conclusion that ‘crisis fatigue’ has set in and people are going to spend money to make themselves feel better during the holiday.

I’ll retreat back into my wait and see mode and await the first quarter results instead. If those continue to climb then I’d say the recovery continues to gain strength and the economy will wobble forward.

Don’t worry, the recession is on the way:

The inconvenient truth is that absent massive public spending, we would have completed the deleveraging process that was started in 2008 and interrupted with monetary and fiscal stimulus. It can be argued that this borrow and spend policy has done nothing to affect a legitimate economic recovery and in fact, at this point, it is simply adding to the problem.

(3) metrics:

1. Labor participation is at a 30-year low, and in spite of that lack of participation, we remain — four years after the recession ended — at 14.6% unemployment using the U6 figure.

$7 trillion in borrowed money and almost $3 trillion in monetary stimulus has accomplished nothing to date to improve the unemployment situation. At what point do we accept reality? Government stimulus is not helping to resolve the problem and is, in fact, going to make it that much worse when natural market forces outweigh all other forces and we enter into a protracted recession.

2. Excess reserves in the nations banking systems remain at historic high’s stuck in a liquidity trap. This money never makes it to the economy.

3. Money velocity is at a 50-year low at 1.56. Money velocity is the ratio of M2 to GDP. The reason money velocity is so low is that a significant portion of M2 is locked up in excess reserves, and is doing nothing to drive GDP growth.

Why do so many cling to the belief that the Fed is simply a “money printing” machine and will eventually print enough money to get us moving in the right direction? It hasn’t happened despite unprecedented levels of liquidity infusion into the banking system, and there is simply no reason to think that when we wake up tomorrow morning, that will change.

These are different times than any of us have ever encountered. We can bury our heads in the sand and deny the truth or we can, once and for all, accept reality and deal with the consequence of the government excess that has brought us to this point. Simply solving the “fiscal cliff” issue will do nothing to solve the real problem. It is time to accept that truth.

The severity of our economic dilemma is unprecedented, and there is no viable solution other than a completion of the deleveraging process that began with the credit bubble crisis and interrupted — by a government in denial — with massive stimulus. This is not the talk of a “doomsday” prophet — it is the talk of a realist.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/1025971-3-key-metrics-that-show-why-we-can-t-avoid-recession

[quote=no_such_reality]How bad was it last year? I haven’t a challenge finding parking at any mall or store we’ve gone to yesterday or today.

The big ticket sale items are still in stock in many stores.

I have noticed the more upper middle income the store complex, the busier it is. The lower the income target, the lighter it is…[/quote]

I had to go after a small gift last night which was on special yesterday only and had no trouble finding a parking space close to the store’s side door. In past holiday seasons, this mall was so full on weekends that there is no parking avail anywhere.

Even though this store is a “mainstream” higher-end dept store and not a discount store, its patrons drive from a wide radius of adjacent lower-income areas which don’t have dept stores. I think the problem we are seeing of a little less people at the mall this season or less people at the mall actually buying something is due to less credit floating around the system. Lower-income households have been more prone to filing for BK protection in recent years … even over as little as $10K of debt that they would never be able to pay back. This has taken a good amount of credit out of the system.

A shopper who uses cash typically shops an entirely different way than a shopper who uses credit (the majority of dept store shoppers). The typical “cash-only shopper” buys in swap meets, flea markets, thrift stores, craigslist and uses paypal to order from e-bay (Mexican shoppers excepted).

“A heckler openly mocked shoppers at an Oceanside, California Best Buy as they waited for Black Friday deals. The man can be heard shouting ‘you zombies are the reason Thanksgiving and the holidays are being destroyed’ and other anti-Black Friday comments as shoppers filed in the store.”

Read more: http://www.1045wfla.com/cc-common/mainheadlines3.html?feed=425022&article=10591588#ixzz2DBQQ8aX2

Some of the comments are priceless.

http://www.1045wfla.com/cc-common/mainheadlines3.html?feed=425022&article=10591588

As far as Black Friday goes, Barry Ritholtz offered the idea that people crowding the stores to get the discounts while they are available is a sign of consumer weakness, not strength. I’m not convinced of that but it’s an interesting idea. I guess we will have to see what the rest of the season looks like retail spending wise…

[quote=Rich Toscano][quote=paramount] This is not the talk of a “doomsday” prophet — it is the talk of a realist.
[/quote]

I don’t know whether he is a realist or not, but he is confused about monetary aggregates… bank reserves are not part of M2, which renders much of that article invalid.[/quote]

The author states that money shouldn’t be counted in M2 until in a depositors account.