Conventional wisdom (CW) holds that economic news in the month leading up to an election generally has little impact on behavior in the voting booth. That may be welcome news for the Bush camp, in light of growing evidence of an extended hiccup in the purported "recovery":
Retailers Report Modest Gains in September
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:56 p.m. ETNEW YORK (AP) -- The outlook for the holiday shopping season grew more uncertain Thursday as the nation's largest retailers reported they had a fourth straight month of tepid sales in September.
High gasoline prices and grocery bills and ongoing job insecurity prompted many consumers to again limit their spending. The disappointing results came from retailers across the industry, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Gap Inc., Federated Department Stores Inc., and J.C. Penney Co. Inc.
``There's definitely some anxiety out there on the part of consumers,'' said Ken Perkins, a research analyst at RetailMetrics LLC, a research firm in Cambridge, Mass.
Low- and middle-income Americans in particular have been forced to cut spending on clothing and other non-necessities as gas and food prices rise. They're also nervous about jobs -- last week, the Conference Board reported that job worries helped push consumer confidence down in September for the second month in a row.
Only time, of course, will tell. Like many techie families, we honestly can answer, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago" with a resounding "no!"
At one point today, I saw a price quote for oil at $53/barrel. I didn't see the close.
Lets see, spiking energy prices, tepid retail sales, increasing layoffs, bad weather, 4 week moving average of jobless claims up... If the jobs reports comes in big, there should be an investigation.
Posted by: dwight at October 7, 2004 07:53 PM