Retail Sales "Sluggish"

Retailers Report Sluggish October Sales
The International Council of Shopping Centers-UBS tally was up 1.6 percent in October, below the original 2.5 percent forecast, marking the slowest October pace since 1995. The tally is based on same-store sales, or sales at stores open at least a year, considered a key indicator of a retailer's health.

The 1.6 percent pace was below the 2.2 percent gain averaged so far this fiscal year, which for retailers begins in February. Still, Michael P. Niemira, chief economist at ICSC, estimated that mild weather depressed sales results by about 0.75 percentage point.

In October, 2006 the seasonally adjusted CPI was 201.8. In September of this year the seasonally adjusted CPI was 208.292. Let's just assume there was no official inflation from September (which may end up being fairly generous given that oil is now $95 a barrel and our dollar has tanked). That would put the year over year inflation at 3.2%.

So when we read that same stores sales are up 1.6%, what we're really saying is that same store sales are down 1.6% and that it was actually inflation making the numbers look somewhat decent. Heck, let's even tack on Michael P. Niemira's missing 0.75% due to weather. That leaves us with a drop of 0.85% in real inflation adjusted sales.

With Dec. 25 about seven weeks away, the retail industry is struggling with consumers' eroding confidence and a weakening sales trend amid mounting problems in the economy. Throughout the year, shoppers have been faced with higher gas and food bills and depreciating value of their homes. Tighter credit has also become an issue in recent months. And while last week's move by the Federal Reserve to cut a key interest rate by a quarter-point will make it cheaper to borrow money, economists say it may be too late to help boost holiday spending.

How can cheaper money help? It is the problem!! One can only wonder how much MORE money will need to be printed so that we can afford higher gas and food bills. Billions? Yes! Trillions? Yes! Quadrillions? Not yet, but we're working on it! My deeply sarcastic mind finds it all extremely staggering, um, I mean stagflationary (at best, perhaps even hyperinflationary at some point).

Zimbabwe Central Bank Tries To Revive Industry By Injecting Funds
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Gideon Gono is printing trillions of local dollars and pumping them into the country's profoundly troubled manufacturing sector in an effort to revive the supply side of the economy, business sources said.

Rare Video Inside Zimbabwe Shows Impact of Hyperinflation, Food Shortages
The cruelest irony is that in a country with rampant poverty and an unemployment rate approaching 90 percent, almost everyone on these streets is technically a millionaire.

Inflation in Zimbabwe is now the worst in the world, acknowledged by the government to be running at over 7,000 percent, although experts put it much higher.

$1 Zim, once equal in value to $1 U.S. is now actually worth less than a single sheet of toilet paper -- offered in one store in bulk for one and a half million dollars per pack.

If we stay on the current path, we'll be trading $1 Zim and $1 U.S. at par again.