The Census Bureau's advance report on retail sales for December confirmed what most observers suspected: American consumers did plenty of spending to close the year. The really big jump came in auto sales. I'm not sure how excited we should get about that -- it's a fairly volatile series. But there is no doubt that things look a lot different than they did last December. Here's the picture from the Census Bureau:
(One note of caution -- these figures are not adjusted for inflation, so things will look somewhat less dramatic when expressed in constant-dollar terms, especially for the year-over-year figures.)
The picture for the fourth quarter of last year is now largely in focus. From Bloomberg:
Consumer spending probably grew at a 3.6 percent annual rate last quarter, the median estimate of economists surveyed from Jan. 3 to Jan. 7 by Bloomberg News. The gains in spending helped the economy grow at a 3.9 percent annual rate from October through December, compared with 4 percent the previous three months, the survey found.
I cannot help but think on those numbers and conclude that John Snow has a pretty reasonable case:
US Treasury Secretary John Snow said Wednesday that the country's record trade deficit set in November was a result of US economic growth outpacing that of other countries.
"The trade gap reflects two things: that our economy is growing at a fast pace and we are growing faster than our trading partners," Snow told reporters at the New York Stock Exchange, according to reports reaching here.