Say what you will about household debt and the blowback from recession, but Joe Sixpack and his spendthrift ways won’t go quietly into the night, recession or no recession.
This morning’s update on retail sales for November was a reminder that ours is a consumer economy and old habits die hard. U.S. retail and food services sales for November rose 1.3% on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Census Bureau reports. A monthly rise above 1% for this series is impressive and should soothe worries that the danger of an imminent double-dip recession is lurking. Even after excluding volatile auto sales last month, retail sales climbed 1.2%. In addition, the advance was broad based, with only a few sectors posting declines.