Day By Day

Thursday, June 12, 2008

More Good News On the Economy

Retail sales are up.

AP reports:

The Commerce Department reported Thursday that retail sales soared 1 percent last month, double what had been expected. It was the largest increase since November and represented strong sales at a variety of retailers including the biggest increase at department stores and other general merchandise stores in a year.

The May increase, double what economists had been expecting, provided the strongest evidence yet that the economy is getting a major boost from the $50 billion in economic stimulus payments the government sent out by the end of May, slightly less than half of the $106.7 billion scheduled to be sent out this year.

Read it here.

There is one constant in economic reporting -- in nearly every story the experts are surprised that the economy is performing better than they predicted. You would think that they would learn something from this, or that the MSM would begin to question their downbeat predictions, but the doom and gloom cant keeps on coming. Gee, you would think this was an election year or something.