Posted on 10/05/2026 11:54:32 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Spending is rising because prices are climbing and Americans are buying more stuff, despite long-running frustrations over inflation
CHICAGO—Happy hour at Chicago’s Bar Roma was buzzing this past week as locals poured in for $10 cocktails and $11 bruschetta. Kathleen Harper and her husband would normally share a few appetizers, but tonight they were splurging on the $50 tasting menu.
“After a long day—I work from home—I like to just get out of the house,” said Harper, who sells fraud-protection services. “Business has been good,” she added, “because fraud, unfortunately, is up.” Harper said she worries about the health of the economy and rising prices for gas and groceries, but feels secure enough to enjoy a good happy-hour deal.
Decisions like that across the economy show America’s appetite for consumption is expanding. Americans are spending more on food, travel, couches, Halloween decor and most anything else they want or need—pushing through inflation and their own gloomy feelings about the economy.
The dollar amount spent by U.S. households rose by 6.1% in the 12 months through August, up from annual growth of 4.3% at the end of last year, the Commerce Department reported. Economic growth for the second quarter of 2026, the most recent data available, was revised upward this past week, fueled by consumer spending and business investment.
“For all the talk about AI data centers, the main engine of growth for GDP in the United States has been broad-based consumer-spending growth, which I think is tied to a broad-based, stable labor market,” Austan Goolsbee, head of the Chicago Fed, told journalists after an economic forum this past...
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
For my part, I think the “COVID” crap is also driving a lot of the spending. I think a lot of people have the mindset of “enjoy it now, because at any moment, the government might take everything from you - your money, your lifestyle, your very freedom.”
Come and Take It !
I’ve had a good run...
Fast Cars and a Good Steak
We’re all I needed.
.
The closest Out Back Steak House
Is in Flagstaff.
Dang
Yeah, it can’t be because people have confidence in Trump and his long term economy.
Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.
Lame stream.......Trump’s war of his choosing is why you can’t afford gasoline and diesel.
fueled by consumer spending and business investment.
It could be. It could be a combination of the two. I don't know about you, but for my part, the thought that the same leftists who ran the "COVID" scam and tyranny on the world might get back into power is enough to make the idea of "carpe diem" a whole lot more front-of-mind.
later
Typical WSJ Globalist garbage - Orange man bad - hoping the midterms weaken him. Trumpet the bad notes ignore the positives.
The quote provides good news.
I was wondering about this as I’d read that employment and wages are up, but I mostly heard about “affordability” (inflation). So, the good news is not a total surprise.
I’ve seen a lot of complaints about the cost of housing, but no constructive suggestions. Let’s open the Federal forests to logging. Lower priced lumber would reduce the cost of building a home. Land use restrictions should be reconsidered. Companies should consider either raising wages in places such as San Francisco, or moving out. People should reconsider their prejudices. I know of a nice-looking neighborhood of new premanufactured homes. I’m sure they cost far less than more traditional homes.
P.S. I moved to an undiscovered resort community by a lake. News: it’s been discovered and prices are rising. Oh no, the sky is falling.
I got in on the ground floor of the wig & eyelash craze. I’ve never seen so many. No signs of it slowing down. Lucky me.
<>Trump’s war of his choosing is why you can’t afford gasoline and diesel.<>
We’re in a civilizational battle against evil, and all you and NPR can harp about is higher gas prices.
Seven presidents balked. President Trump acted.
And has nothing to do with Trump economic policies. /sarcasm
Hey IRGC symp the war started in 1979.
I call them feckless f’ers. Should have been taken care of when it happened.
I am an engineer and not a psych major and don’t want to be but lately I’ve been digging in to reasons for what has changed. We are what we became between about 0 and 12 years old the rest, notwithstanding a severe and consequential event, is just polishing and maturing that 0 to 12 person. The mind that grew up in another time may know about some other formative time but just does not think the same as some other generation.
Consider that so many people today were brought up in a day care, taught by liberals, matured with Covid, indoctrinated to dependency, gratified instantly by something, cocooned in computer games and so on. All of these different things shaped their infant and primitive brains. Many of us that are no longer running the show can’t touch any part of the mind of younger generations. They are not like us except that they are human.
I grew up with a stay at home mother, a father that left and came home at the same time just about every single day, a predictable schedule, walks in along a creek or river after church, camping, hunting, fishing with regularity, month long family traveling vacations, a Carnegie Library frequented, by best friend and I riding our bikes all over town and way out to the airport and having lunch at the bar at the Stockyard Cafe and a paper route we made every morning, raising and lowering the flag at school, gangs of kids walking home from school and playing along the way and all of those now ancient and generally not available or done things that were the foundation of our lives that just are not so common or at all these days. There are times I feel like I grew up in a Norman Rockwell painting for those that remember what that was.
Housing and Healthcare are the biggest inflation drivers in the long run. They are also much more heavily regulated than other industries.
HMMMM wonder if there is a connection.
Do Certificate of Need state laws cause constant high prices for healthcare?
Do excessive regulations in Medicare & Medicaid cause high prices?
Do offers of freebie extras in Medicare that cost the taxpayer 5 times the freebie amount cause high prices of healthcare?
Do ....?
Do .... ?
I think what it is is akin to someone trying to catch the train which has departed the platform, they cannot do it. The dems have made an argument based on affordability, but their view of affordability is buying whatever you want. The dummies who listen to it don’t realize, that does not work esp0ecially if you are underwater already.
There was a story this AM about people trying to trade in their cars with 900 pm payments for a cheaper car to lower their payment. What they miss is they are upside down on their current car as they rolled in negative equity. Others are finding out their houses they over paid on as the interest rates were so low have lost their “equity” in that if they dump them, they will get less than they owe. Someone called Ramsey the other day. She has 50K in savings, 20K in debt but wants to know if they can afford a 550K house on a 100K salary. No concept that the 500K they will owe at 6% alone 30K a year not counting amortization plus taxes and insurance.
“Housing and Healthcare are the biggest inflation drivers in the long run. They are also much more heavily regulated than other industries.”
I don’t doubt it.
One thing I think we should account for is the tendency for subsidized activity to cost more. For starters, we are increasing demand. I wouldn’t assume that supply adjusts fully and instantly. It seems that people in manufacturing and journalism were both reluctant to become coders.
Then there is the quality of the subsidy. A loosely run program may tend to fraud. A tightly run program may prove counterproductive. Bureaucrats spend other people’s money. Why think they would be motivated to do a good job?
I’m still waiting for HCQ and Ivermectin to be available over-the-counter.
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