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Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.

12 Responses to “U.S. Consumer Spending ChartFest”

1. Abhishek Says:
   June 18th, 2010 at 12:07 pm

   Rising income disparity continues its relentless march.It can continue for a long while till the whole thing comes down due to social acrimony

2. JustinTheSkeptic Says:
   June 18th, 2010 at 12:34 pm

   The rich are seeing some bargains so why not spend if you have it. On my ride back from Florida for the summer, the interstates were full of 18 wheelers, but half of them were empty. Probably because the dispatcher couldn’t get them filled for the return trip. My guess is that 90% is one time inventory build.

3. franklin411 Says:
   June 18th, 2010 at 1:03 pm

   I can’t speak about empty big rigs, but an article in the LA Times last week noted that Long Beach and San Pedro port volumes came in at the second strongest month on record. One of the positive data point they cited was that the traffic of outbound empty freighters was soaring, which meant that demand is so strong in the US that shippers are taking freighters out of mothballs and putting them back to work.

4. call me ahab Says:
   June 18th, 2010 at 1:21 pm

   home improvement and maintenance would have to go down- why bother with that when you are not paying your mortgage and waiting for the bank to kick you out?

   leaves a few bucks left over for that “general shopping” category

5. NoKidding Says:
   June 18th, 2010 at 2:07 pm

   Those charts would be more relevant to recovery talk if they started in 2006.

6. Dow Says:
   June 18th, 2010 at 3:29 pm

   If I were rich, I’d be mighty worried about that chart.

7. Robespierre Says:
   June 18th, 2010 at 5:31 pm

   You have to love those charts. They clearly show who has benefit from tax payer based bailouts. For the rest there is always cake – Change you can believe in….

8. Simon Says:
   June 18th, 2010 at 6:56 pm

   The US consumer has to spend. How else can China and also Europe soon maintain their surpluses?

9. oldhillbilly Says:
   June 18th, 2010 at 7:29 pm

   In reference to the comment “I can’t speak about empty big rigs, but an article in the LA Times last week noted that Long Beach and San Pedro port volumes came in at the second strongest month on record.”

   I cannot for the life of me see where this claim comes from. Anyone interested can look at the monthly reports for TEU’s at the LA port here. Compare May 2010 stats, empty or full, to just about any month in 2007. I track LA, Long Beach and NY/NJ every month and things are on the upswing, but like the monthly railroad numbers, they aren’t anywhere close to record levels.

   http://www.portoflosangeles.org/maritime/stats.asp

   Seems to me a few years back that the flood of empty Chinese containers sitting around was making a lot of news, being turned into houses, because they were cheaper and stronger than wood homes. Now we are sending them back to China. Is it bullish news – or has the housing market gotten so bad we don’t need them anymore? Sheesh – maybe it’s gotten so bad the hard core survivalist’s have given up burying them in their back yard’s!!

10. jjay Says:
    June 18th, 2010 at 8:05 pm

    How are Fabrege Egg sales going?
    I hear the Romanov family bought a bunch just before the end.
    Might be a good sign the top is in for the elites.
    Or maybe not.
    Too soon to tell.

11. michaelismoe Says:
    June 18th, 2010 at 10:13 pm

    Using these charts as justification, since the wealthy have so much disposible income, why not tax the shit out of them?

12. ellsworth Says:
    June 19th, 2010 at 9:26 am

    I am definitely not in the “wealthy” category, but still, I cannot understand the perspective of “taxing the shit” out of people who do fall into that category.

    Whether people got there through luck (winning the lottery), hard work (starting/growing a business), or some combination like inheritance (benefiting from someone else’s luck or hard work)…if we have a system of heavily taxing wealthy individuals and redistributing the $$ to the non-wealthy, we lose the incentive for people to work hard (i.e. start/grow businesses) or get lucky (play the lottery).

    Thanks, but I’d rather lean toward the capitalistic economy with low government intervention. If you prefer something more socialist, try Cuba, North Korea, Laos, or China.