That’s not good. That’s *really* not good. Spending at retailers was weak and it’s leading to the chance that consumers are pulling back. As a matter of fact, retail sales were much lower than expected and projected. It’s all about The Donald’s whipsawing on tariffs. Thanks, idiot!
His trade spat with America’s biggest partners is making consumers and businesses worried. Increases may be coming. It’s created a high level of uncertainty for consumers and businesses alike. If businesses can’t plan for their future imports and pricing, they can’t be certain of pricing. So really, they also have to pull back on spending. It’s a vicious circle all brought on by tRump’s worse-than-usual erratic choices in an effort to bring our vendors to heel. But he refuses to see that the tariffs are making prices higher for our business partners, and they have to pass it along to consumers or go out of business.
Weak consumer spending figures are adding to concerns that the US economy is slowing, and perhaps heading into a recession. We keep getting told no, no, no we aren’t but we are sliding down that hill. However, yesterday’s report wasn’t all bad news. Excluding sales of the “control group (which is large)”, retail spending rose 1% in February, recovering from the 1% loss in January. That’s better than what was projected. There’s still a little hope left, but only a little.
Executives at retail stores have been warning of consumers feeling stretched and pulling back on their spending. If the trade war goes out of control, they will have to raise prices. That’s going to make consumers pull back even more. I know we have. There’s no frivolous spending allowed. Prices are already starting to rise and we can’t have any fun things anymore. And that’s going to hurt businesses. This goes back to that vicious circle.
Price increases are going to hit the poor and the elderly people with a fixed income the worst. It goes back to something I’ve mentioned before. If it’s a toss-up between food and meds, the meds will win. Agent Orange doesn’t think about people like that. He’s a gazillionaire, and his buddies are gazillionaires, so he would only think, if he can, about what affects them. It’s going to affect the middle class soon. So, all of us lower than that level are going to get hit the hardest.
If we’re lucky, said gazillionaires will start screaming about their losses on the stock market. That might make tRump sit up and listen if we’re lucky. Might. I doubt we could be so blessed. He certainly doesn’t listen to anyone else.
From CNN: “America’s economic mood is souring, shoppers aren’t doling out like they used to and the housing market remains sluggish. At the same time, the US economy is facing the threat of higher inflation because of Trump’s tariffs.” And: “Economists tell CNN the economy has been trending toward “stagflation” — a scenario in which growth flattens or declines as inflation accelerates.” It just gets worse from here, all because the Mango Mandarin is having a temper tantrum about “ countries are taking advantage of us”. DUDE. It doesn’t work that way. Higher tariffs hurt us. They definitely don’t help and they certainly don’t bring money into the US. He refuses to see this. Remove the log in your eye before you remove the speck in someone else’s.
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