Posted on 01/15/2016 8:50:51 AM PST by thackney
Americans tapered off from shopping toward the end of the holiday season, while lower gasoline prices cut into overall retail sales in December.
The Commerce Department said Friday that retail sales dipped a seasonally adjusted 0.1 percent last month to $448.1 billion after having climbed a solid 0.4 percent in November.
The report shows consumer tastes shifting toward restaurants and online shopping. The extra savings from falling gas costs have yet to boost spending much in other retail categories.
Sales fell in December at clothing, electronics outlets and general merchandise stores. But those declines were largely offset by spending at restaurants, online retailers, furnishers and sporting goods and building supply stores....
(Excerpt) Read more at fuelfix.com ...
quote “while lower gasoline prices cut into overall retail sales in December”
WHAT!?!?
Why would LOWER gasoline prices cut into overall retail sales?
Um.. LOWER gasoline prices would give people MORE money to spend not less!
What kind of messed up logic is this?
Listening to political hacks talk is like bashing your head against a brick wall: it is completely senseless and feels so good when it stops.
I don’t understand, either. Unless they’re referencing people who work in the industry and the snowball effect on other businesses.
More cr@p from “experts”.
This title is ILLOGICAL; it makes no sense. Low gas prices should have made it EASIER and ENCOURAGED more sales, but it didn't. THEREFORE THERE ARE OTHER FACTORS AT WORK.
Take for instance the Employer Mandate and increased ObamaCare penalties (can be 2.5% of income in 2016). For those laid off or switched to part time employment, of course they would reduce or eliminate their shopping because of the 2016 Employer Mandate.
Those Self-Employed workers who have to make there estimated quarterly tax payments who could not afford Obamacare now would know they had to pay the higher tax/penalty and therefore reduce or eliminate their shopping as well.
Logic seems to be absent in much of the press these days. And I for one will not buy from their advertisers to say so to them.
Yep, that was my reaction too. Then I remembered, the Federal Government will lie shamelessly to shift the blame elsewhere.
They probably have some big bin somewhere, filled with notecards. On each notecard there is an excuse. Just pull one at random, and use it to fill in the blank: The poor economic numbers are due to ____________ .
In the future we will probably hear about snow on rail tracks, cloudy weather, unusually steep mountains in Peru, etc.
Gasoline is counted in retail sales.
But the savings in gasoline isn’t being spent much on other items.
It is all part of the total.
Yes, your items, as well as, out of work employees cut spending drastically. And when there companies cut buying pipe, valves, pumps, motors, controllers, cabling, etc, the employees at those business get job cuts.
The folks with sense that are still employed at different industries also cut back significantly on surplus spending.
we had....MORE money, cause we spent.....LESS....on gas, so we SPENT LESS....at the store.....HUH???????
End of last year, I lost my 7 figure contract with another big chain. I know they will also close stores.
The Stock Market is crashing today. The explanation is “cheap gas prices”.
Huh?
The article actually states that too, in the second to last paragraph. The entire piece is a jumble of thoughts and sentences, incoherent word hash. No logic or flow at all.
The retail sales includes gas, if you’re paying less for the same amount of gas it would drop sales in that sector. Yes you COULD spend that money elsewhere, but you might not. Truthfully a .1 dip is basically nothing, that’s margin of error type stuff.
It’s really cheap oil. Oil extraction operations are being rendered unprofitable left and right, so they’re stopping, which also means they’re not buying as much equipment, so heavy equipment manufacturers are taking it in the shorts too.
In the world of economics every silver lining has a dark cloud.
The Obama Great Recession has scared people away from spending too much.
Low gas prices are the only relief nowadays for most Americans, what with the high cost of rent, utilities, food, clothing, insurance, dentist/doctor bills, taxes, etc., etc. Not many have money left over.
Why are they even including gasoline as part of consumer retail in the first place? Talk about pencil whipping the test..
Anyone notice a drop in prices resulting from lower shipping costs? Nope. I didn’t either.
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