Back Talk

The mainstream media, always eager to report bad news and with a general ignorance of economics, declaim every downtick in the Dow Jones and every uptick in consumer prices a crisis forming in our economy. On the other hand, good economic news escapes their notice. They have been reporting for several weeks the home sales upheaval would cause a poor Christmas shopping season for merchants, possible inflation, and worse. Now, the news they didn’t cover. Consumers apparently were not too worried about slumping home sales and soaring gasoline prices and hit the shopping centers big time in November, pushing spending up by the largest amount in 3 1/2 years. The November increase was the biggest one-month jump in four years and was even higher that the economic analysts projected.