Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Retail Sales Report Not As Ebullient As Reported

August retail sales were reported to be .4% above the July metric. However, July's number was revised down, making whatever increase in August there was from back-to-school buying appear to be more significant arithmetically in the headline than the overall nominal increase month to month.

In addition, as Bloomberg reports, 17 States engaged in "no sales tax holidays" during August.  As we have seen with Government subsidized sales programs in autos and housing, all this does is "pull" future sales into the present, creating large drops in sales in subsequent months.

As per one of my earlier posts, a recent survey of the population indicates that over 2/3's of the country sees worse economic conditions going forward and over 75% plan to cut back on holiday spending. Programs like "sales tax holidays" will likely exacerbate this future reduction in spending.

11 comments:

  1. Dave, can you explain this?

    "18. I’m sorry to say, but the gold price is in the hands of the banksters and Tim “the terminator” Geithner, head of the Treasury. It’s not about the comex or the LBMA. The Govt, Treasury, and Central Bank all want gold higher in price, way higher. So, guess where the price of gold IS going?

    19. Correct. WAY HIGHER."

    That's Stewart Thomson.

    http://www.321gold.com/editorials/thomson_s/thomson_s_091410.html

    Everything I know says that the government wants to *suppress* the gold price.

    And by the way, thanks for the best gold blog out there.

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  2. Thanks for the compliment U-6! I appreciate it.

    Thomson's view of the end game is that the Govt will ulitmately revalue the price of gold by an amount that's large enough to re-instate the gold backing of the Treasury debt. Only before that happens the Treasury market will collapse and the banks will buy all the Treasury bonds being puked up by the public at 50-70 cents on the dollar.

    The problem I have with ST's view is that he assumes that the U.S. Treasury owns AND possesses the 8100 tonnes of gold that it has been reporting since the last official independent audit back in like 1954 or 1955.

    I do not believe that gold is there. If it's been mostly leased out, at what price could it be repurchased by the bullion banks and physically returned to the Treasury?

    But that's why he says the Govt is in control of the price. Another aspect he overlooks is that the Chinese will have a huge say in the future price of gold. I believe the Chinese will ultimately prove out to be the largest holder of actual physical gold and will roll out a gold-backed currency.

    And let me ask you this, would the world accept a U.S. gold-backed currency without first seeing proof that the U.S. owns and possesses every ounce of that 8100 tonnes? No way.

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  3. Black-Eagle-Trust

    US has a lot more gold than 8100 tonnes...

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  4. http://fofoa.blogspot.com/2010/09/just-another-hyperinflation-post-part-3.html

    Last of a great series.

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  5. Anonymous. Good luck if you believe that. Explain to me why the U.S. won't allow its gold to be independently audited. We know for a fact that Nixon closed the gold window because de Gaulle was about to start a run on the gold by cashing in U.S. debt in exchange for gold as per Bretton Woods. The U.S. didn't have enough.

    Sorry, you go look in the U.S. gold cupboard you'll find it to be in the same condition as Old Mother Hubbard's cupboard.

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  6. US has a lot more gold than 8100 tonnes...

    --------------

    Ok then why is it such a States secret...Produce or shut up that is my motto.

    I will go out on a limb here and say, since Nixon killed the Gold standard, our Gold, the Countries Gold has been pilferaged like every other sector in These United States by the Banker Barron's.

    Absorb this " Your on your own " best to sit back learn and prepare, never mind this silly talk of " The United States has more than 8000 tonnes of Gold " more like an 8000 ton elephant and his name his " DEBT "

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  7. Hey Dave surely this Market is for real..../snark/

    Someone ran AXAHY (AXA) up over 17% real fast today.........."pump then dump".........

    Check out this chart:

    http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/AXAHY

    All the more reason I refuse to play...dam strait I am buying metals.

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  8. Dave, how do you KNOW that the operation Black Eagle hasn't been succsessful in bringing that gold to the US?
    Conspiracy or not conspiracy,nobody knows EXACTLY imo.

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  9. BTW Jim Rickards is kind of an insider and one of his suggestions is to devalue the $ against Au. Why is he so sure FK still has the gold? I would not say this clever guy is some sort of a naive douchebag.Who's book is he talking?

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  10. If the operation Black Eagle was for real, that gold would have gone into private hands in exchange for fiat to fund black ops IMO

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  11. Oops - here we go - this could be only the start....

    http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20100915/tuk-terror-group-in-warning-to-criminal-45dbed5.html

    ReplyDelete