Crumbs.
So the left has been up in arms for days now about the government shutdown, pitching wails over the Wall Street numbers and stock market showing and predicting nothing but gloom and doom and financial suffering because of President Donald Trump.
Then along come retail sales and put all that blather in its place.
“U.S. Holiday Retail Sales Are Strongest in Years, Early Data Show,” the Wall Street Journal reported on Christmas Day.
And this from CNBC, the following day: “Retail is having its best holiday season in 6 years.”
In six years. Imagine that.
What that means in political-speak is that even the darkest Trump hours seem to pretty much beat out the best Barack Obama hours.
What that means is the naysayers in the anti-Trump camp have lost yet another bullet point to make their anti-Trumping case.
A chart from Digital Commerce 360 shows total retail sales growth plummeted in 2009, rose slightly in 2010 and 2011, and then fell and stayed about the same through 2017. The dots and lines followed roughly the same route whether retail or e-commerce.
The Balance, meanwhile, reported this: “Retail sales hit a record of $5.7 trillion in 2017, according to the U.S. Census. That’s better than the pre-recession high of $4.4 trillion spent i 2007. It’s also a 42 percent increase from 2009’s record low of $4.06 trillion.”