Seattle Bubble Forum Archive

Via The Big Picture -
can this be real?


So much for any "bottom call" I would say

I doubt it's even as high as -10% now. Granted I've never been much of a shopper (always frugal), but just looking around, a lot of stores look deserted or close to it. I'm making more mercy buys lately, like yesterday I bought a slice of banana bread and orange juice at an otherwise empty independent coffee shop, whereas normally I'd not pay $4 for that. I may have to stop going to places like that.

It's only a matter of time before this economy is widely recognized as a depression. Having fallen this far this fast, and gov't obviously hurting more than helping (even Obama), it's a safe bet this one will be worse than the last one.

One thing is for certain - this is not an inflationary indicator.
there are no buyers.

5% YoY reduction in PCE, where that makes up 70% of a $14 trillion economy = $500billion in spending that has disappeared

That's slightly less than the planned spending over the next 2 years from the stimulus plan. Wonder if that is the math they are using to get to the number in the budget.

I suspect this is credit card expenditure data. How else would they be able to keep track?

When economists say that consumer spending is X amount of the economy they must mean credit spending.

We have established wages have stagnated in the past ten years, but consumer spending has increased.

So yes, if you have a job you are holding onto money. if you lost a job you are spending cash. Those that are without jobs using credit are a problem for a future time.