The major retail chains released August data on retail sales that showed modest nominal gains compared with last year. (Adjusted for inflation, the gains would be close to zero.) While this was widely accepted as positive news, since it seemed to imply that the mortgage meltdown is not affecting the rest of the economy, the NYT found a somewhat different story. It pointed out that some of the big chains had big sales in order to sustain sales. It also pointed out that two big states, Texas and Florida, moved up a tax free shopping week from September to August, which would have infllated the August numbers.
--Dean Baker
