“The Curious Capitalist on the 2.8% drop in consumer spending in October:
[T]he hardest-hit category by far, gasoline stations—down 12.7%—was down largely because gas prices were down. It wasn’t that consumers were cutting back. It’s that they were saving money. Take gas stations out of the equation and the retail spending decline is 1.5%. Take gas stations and cars (motor vehicle & parts dealers) out, and the decline is 0.5%. Then again, if you take all the stuff that went down out of the equation, retail sales were up.
This recession seems stranger the more I look at it. We’re not seeing a decline in work, and I know few people curtailing their spending habits. Quite the opposite. I know more than a handful who are spending more than normal, capitalizing on many of the unfathomable bargains available.
Anecdotes are of course useless, but the disconnect strikes me as something to think about.”
I’ve noticed the same thing, not only with people that I know, but especially in my own life. I haven’t had to cut back on anything, and on top of that, the cheap gas has just put more money in my pocket since I barely drive, I now have to fill up less than once a month. I’ve heard of some layoffs, but not in my immediate circle. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Big Contrarian → Fuzzy math.
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Joshua Tuscan spills some thoughts here and they collect in a pool. I live in Seattle, btw.
I once cried because I couldn't draw a tree the way I saw it in my head... Granted, it was kindergarten, but it was a defining moment. One of my lifelong goals has been to
ride a horse through a shallow lake, seriously, it's in my grade school journal. I lived in Barbados for a while where I almost lost my toe, which has stood as a metaphor in
my life for that time. I watch a lot of movies and sometimes I fear that it is cutting into my ability to learn foreign languages. Oh yeah, I like to write beautiful, validated code. (More/Less)
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