Posted on 10/28/2011 6:08:27 AM PDT by Free Vulcan
Personal income rose a seasonally adjusted 0.1% last month, while consumer spending jumped 0.6%, the Commerce Department reported.
Americans paid for goods and services — autos were a big seller last month — largely by drawing on their savings or taking on more debt. The personal savings rate fell from 4.1% to 3.6%, marking the lowest level since December 2007...
...Inflation, meanwhile, rose 0.2% in September based on the latest reading from the personal consumption expenditure price index. The PCE index has increased 2.9% over the past 12 months
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
Since these are Commerce Dept. numbers, how do we know we can trust their stats? Who’s checking the admin’s number crunchers?
Well in all fairness Gas was rather cheap in September, however Oil is back up over $90 and I think gas prices will go back up..
It doesn’t really make sense. Why in the world would we be spending more in this environment? (I would imagine that most cash-strapped families would be saving for x-mas...I know we are)
Exactly. "Everything about socialism is sham and affectation." - 23.11 Ch.23 Evil; Economic Harmonies; Frederic Bastiat 1801-1850
In this socialist's economy, I've spent less and saved more.
DEFUND socialist collectives, foreign and domestic.
Could be just blowing off steam. It's been two years since the meltdown. Two years of deleveraging. In my household, we're debt-free except for an above-water mortgage refinanced down to under 4%, with about 8 years to go until it's paid off.
We've mostly been buying stocks, but we can buy stuff here and there. The cellar is stocked with emergency supplies. Income is fine. Actually, the last two years for us haven't been bad at all.
I’ve just gone about my regular business, with no regard for the rogues in DC.
LLS
Gas is going back up..
LLS
We’d be spending more just due to inflation. But I’d still like to know who, if anyone, is checking the admin’s math.
IIRC, most retailers make most, if not all, of their profits in the last quarter. Spending should be up. But even if spending is up, doesn’t mean margins are. Wish we just had some trustworthy numbers to look at.
We’d be spending more just due to inflation. But I’d still like to know who, if anyone, is checking the admin’s math.
Now that makes sense! I didn’t account for inflation! I wonder what the (real) rate of inflation is and how it pertains to those numbers.
October we are back to normal.
Rising prices. We're spending more money to buy the same number of goods -- or maybe fewer. GDP is supposedly adjusted for price inflation, but it's a guess; and that guess is always on the low side.
The only reason GDP can increase at all is inflation. If the number of dollars were held stable, GDP would never change -- it couldn't. That doesn't mean the economy couldn't grow -- prices would be forced down.
But GDP would be exposed for what it is. A nonsense measurement.
So we’re being gouged again, just in a different way?
You can get by without spending for a couple of years, but eventually things wear out. Those who have been paying down debt or saving large sums of money may be thinking OK, the car is 13 years old and has 226,000 miles, something has to be done.
Then Happy Days are here again?.....Bullcrap!
No way in hell I would buy a new car now and take on that kind of debt with this Turd in charge!
The station I fill up at dropped from $3.27 - $3.11 within the past two weeks.
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