Retail sales are showing very positive growth. They are signaling a continuing strength of growth in the economy at this time. They are taking over for the housing market which is slacking off. Another positive for growth is that inflation is remaining low enough that the U.S. Treasury can continue its bond buying stimulus. That is good for the economy because that allows them to keep interest rates and other monetary controls at low levels to continue to assist growth.
It is a very good thing that the U.S. Treasury is able to keep assisting the economy. The U.S. economy needs to get back on track so that it becomes less of an issue for everyone. Having the U.S. economy back to normal would really help to get the rest of the world on track.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/20/us-retail-sales-idUSBRE9AJ0NX20131120
Some economists that I have seen talk about our income gap have said that as incomes get lower, a focus shifts more to personal possessions instead of housing and long term investments. People can't afford to make large purchases or investments, so they resort to buying more, smaller things for themselves to give that wealthy appearance. Could this be what is happening? Housing is still down, but retail is up. Employment has remained fairly flat. Could be simply be giving up on that home ownership dream? Just food for thought. I am not entirely sure.
ReplyDeleteThis is a rather welcome change in my mind especially because of the rise in the housing market. I feel that the housing market is a great indicator of how well our economy is doing and seeing that it is slowly crawling its way back to prerecession form is good. I didn't really think that the government shutdown was really going to affect consumer spending all that much anyway so the fact that it didn't come as a shock to me.The support the treasury is giving is vital to the success of the economy and if we can pull out of the recession it will be worth all the money the treasury pumped in.
ReplyDeleteIt's good that retail sales are growing. Could one reason for this be the upcoming holiday season? I know that businesses are hiring seasonal workers now because of all of the additional business they will be doing soon.
ReplyDeleteThis seems to be good news for the economy, which seems to be rare. I agree with Tiff as far as the time of year. Businesses are experiencing a much higher revenue hence the holiday season. Maybe this will be the beginning of a slow increase to our economy.
ReplyDeleteAnything that stimulates the economy in a positive manner is worth applauding, but we just need to hope that this continues to be the trend. There has been so much fluctuation within the economy and nothing has been steadily increasing. With the housing market on the increase and the retail market on the increase, hopefully other areas of the economy will also continue to increase and succeed.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Tiffany, the rise in retail sales is most likely a result of the holiday season, and therefore these numbers may not be accurate in the longterm. But hopefully retail companies will use the extra revenue to hire new employees and help reduce unemployment if these numbers really are accurate in the long term.
ReplyDeleteI think it is really good that retail sales are growing. I do think that some of the growth in the retail sales is coming from the holiday season but I do think that just in general the retail sales has gone up during anytime of the year really. It is bad to here that the house market is still down but it is good to hear that the retail sales are up and that inflation is low.
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ReplyDeleteThis is great news for the country. We always hear people talking about how bad that the economy is or is going to be, but this just goes to show that we do have a successful growing economy. Hopefully the retail market keeps its current course into the future, and hope that eventually the housing market will go up too.
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