Poo-Poohed By Politicians And Pundits, The U.S. Economy Is Booming

The economy continued to be portrayed as anemic last week, even as fresh evidence surfaced of the boom underway.

This week’s news affecting your wealth and investments was that retail sales — excluding gasoline, because of its volatile price — rose 4.2% in the 12 months through October 2017.

Retail sales are considerably higher than at the peak of the last economic expansion.

There’s nothing anemic about that.

Growth in retail sales was propelled by a surge in auto sales for the second month in a row.

Auto sales, a key to growth, shot 4.9% higher in the 12 months through October.

Retail sales reflect consumer spending, and the fate of America’s economy is always in the hands of consumers.

Of the 15 retail sales categories, autos sales is by far the most important.  

The 4.9% growth rate in the 101 billion dollars of annual sales of autos represents 4.8 billion dollars of additional spending.

Meanwhile, sales at brick and mortar retail department stores are now dwarfed by non-store online retailers, which have grown rapidly as traditional retail outlets have declined in popularity.

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