Tax-rebate-goosed June Retail Sales rose less than forecast, up 0.1% headline and 0.8% ex-autos. Consensus was for gains of 0.4% and 1.0%. Ex-autos and gasoline sales rose 0.2%. Strip out food and beverages — up 0.7% — and Retail sales were flat.
In other words, despite the tax rebates, Retail ex-inflation was flat to negative. . .
PPI rose 9.2% year over year — the highest since June 1981. It was 0.5% more than consensus expectations. Core rate was 0.2% less than expected year over year but remains elevated at 3%. This is the highest since 1991. (See charts below)
Helping suppress price gains was the decline in truck prices. Had Americans not abandoned SUVs and Pickups in such large numbers (courtesy of $4.50 gasoline), PPI would have been even worse.
PPI in the pipeline rose 2.1% month over month — its up a brutal 14.5% year over year. Employment though fell to the lowest since July ’03 and Prices Paid and Received went to new highs.
Charts via Jake
Inflation adjusted retail sales excluding food services and gasoline are negative for 7 months in a row on a y/y basis. The very worst of the 2001 recession we had 5 negative months y/y in a 10 month period.
(During those 10 months we never had more than 2 months back to back negative.)
Good thing we’re not in a recession! Imagine how bad that might be.
My new tagline? The recession of 2008 does not require your belief.
These are whiney statistics, and just a figment of your imagination.
And that Bernake character…his alleged stagflation is all in his head….damn whiner.
I am damn glad I live in the only country in the world without inflation.
To quote The Circle Jerks, “When The Shit Hits The Fan”
in a sluggish economy
inflation,recession
hits the land of the free
standing in unemployment lines
blame the government for hard time
we just get by
however we can
we all gotta duck
when the shit hits the fan
10 kids in a cadillac
stand in lines for welfare checks
let’s all leach off the state
gee!the money’s really great!
soup lines
free loaves of bread
5lb blocks of cheese
bags of groceries
social security
has run out on you and me
we do whatever we can
gotta duck when the shit hits the fan
My causality indicator will be a surge in punk music in the U.S.A. & U.K. just like the late 70’s and early 80’s.
Core PPI inflation … +0.2% … SAME AS IT EVER WAS.
I could train a monkey to type “0.2” every month. And our helpful simian friend would have an endless supply of tasty bananas, in this ever more banana-flavored republic.
Oil just fell off a cliff.
Off topic but a good article on Einhorn, Lehman et al, in case you missed.
http://nymag.com/news/businessfinance/47844/
To E:
I posted about 2 weeks ago exaclty I was buying DUG and GLD at the same time counting on the convergence. the GLD is up a smidge only, but DUG has been my friend today.
Now to figure out how much of a pig I feel like being.
I would amend that E.
Oil just fell off a cliff or oil was just pushed off a cliff.
Not bad JT but I prefer this one by the great John Prine:
We are living in the future,
I’ll tell you how I know,
I read it in the paper,
fifteen years ago.
We’re all riding rocket ships,
and talking with our minds,
Wearing turquoise jewelry,
and standing in soup lines…
we’re standing in soup lines.
BUT IT’S NOT A RECESSION.
It’s simply a force multiplied asset reallocation exacerbated by excessively active rotation of equity positions into market segments reliant on volatility attenuated price fluctuations.
(My imitation of Greenspan)
The highest inflation since 1981, I lived thru that, but wages and home prices where also rising, not true today
So how much more dibilatating is this inflation?