TRUMPHORIA IS FADING …
The American retail economy contracted for the second straight month in March – sparking fears of recession and placing additional pressure on the administration of U.S. president Donald Trump.
Overall sales declined by 0.2 percent last month. Meanwhile February’s previously-reported 0.1 percent dip was revised downward to 0.3 percent, according to data released Friday by the U.S. Department of Commerce.
That’s the largest two-month tumble for this metric in more than two years.
“This drop in sales should not be total surprise as real average weekly earnings has now failed to rise for three straight months,” our friends at the website Zero Hedge noted.
Wait … is that right?
Yes … according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (.pdf), real average weekly earnings were unchanged in March after posting declines in January and February.
Take a look …
(Click to view)
(Via Zero Hedge)
The math here is simple: America’s consumer economy comprises roughly 70 percent of our nation’s annual gross domestic product. If it isn’t humming, then economic growth is not happening. And yeah … it clearly isn’t humming.
The problem?
If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a million times: The center cannot hold.
American middle class taxpayers simply cannot continue subsidizing welfare statism, crony capitalism, global interventionism and the “manifest destiny” of an unchecked federal bureaucracy.
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