Editorial

America used to mistreat her land and water like this.

This sort of thing, by the way, is how you manage to produce things with a wage of $1 or $2/day and undercut first-world producers.

When we have "free trade" with China, this is what we are supporting.  This is what we're serving up on their people.  This is what our government and corporations all say is ok - so long as it is hidden from us, and happens "over there."

Make all the excuses you want America, this is what you're supporting every time you buy anything made in China or containing Chinese componets.

Go walk around your house and pick up 10 random items.  Look for the "made in" tag on the back or bottom.  What's it say?  Now consider this - it is virtually impossible today to buy a piece of consumer electronics, a toy, an automobile or even a toaster without some part of it coming from China.

YOU are why this is happening.

These are not old photos, or someone's Photoshop experiment.

They're real, they're current, and they are what our hedonism, demand for $20 DVD players and "cheaper and faster" from everyone has resulted in, all so our "corporations" can report "record profits."

Those "great earnings" the last two quarters were in fact generated by firing Americans and shifting yet more production over to China, where they poison their air, water and ground with wild abandon, all so we can have a "strong" stock market and our banksters can loot us some more.

This is just one example.... head to the original article to read and see the rest.

You lost your job so she can bathe in industrial waste, and you are not only consenting to all of it, you're actively supporting it.

Any questions?

Yesterday you undoubtedly saw my letter to The Chinese Premier.  Today, it's your turn.

You could have made quite a splash over there in China - and made a difference for all Americans.  But instead, you did nothing of the sort - you simply continued the sell-out that has been going on for the last two decades in the so-called "strong relationship" between China and America.

That "strength" has included selling China advanced radar technology allowing them to shortcut 20 years of development time off their ICBM targeting, making their nuclear weapons far more lethal to potential targets - including targets in the United States.  It has included turning a blind eye to the blatant and outrageous technology rip-offs that go on over in that nation every day.  You won't see them because your Presidential Motorcade will never be allowed in the street markets found all over the nation, but if you were, you'd see literal millions of unlawfully-made copies of US-created software and music sold openly while the cops stand by to protect the vendors instead of enforcing internationally-agreed to laws that the Chinese pay only lip service to.  And it has included granting virtually tariff-free "trading" status to a nation that forces poor farmers off their land and into sweatshop factories, away from their families where they are paid a buck a day in US equivalent wages, turning out products for sale in the US.

And let's not forget who these companies are.  They're the WalMarts, Apples and Nikes of the world - many of them huge American firms.  Oh not directly - that would bring these firms under US labor and regulatory stricture.  No, they're "independent companies" owned by Chinese slave-drivers who instruct their employees to lie when the "auditors" from WalMart and Apple show up, telling them to a single employee that they're "complying" with reasonable wage and hour laws under penalty of losing their job, being blacklisted forever and literally starving to death.  Since there are no whistleblower protections in China (it is, after all, a Communist government) the big US companies can claim to be "responsible" while in the background you hear the slave-driver's whip crack - and everyone smiles (except the Chinese worker who is being outrageously exploited.)

You ought to know something about this, given your heritage.  Kenya featured prominently in the global slave trade until the British put a stop to it.  There's nothing like a bit of history to screw up the revisionism that finds its way into American Politics, is there?

You ran on a populist platform and won on the basis of "hope and change."  But hope and change is not working at WalMart while offshoring the production of our various consumer goods to China where the replacement for our US workers are paid a buck a day.  Indeed, many of the 8 million American jobs lost since the top of the employment market in mid-2007 will never come back, simply because the small and mid-sized businesses that once dotted the landscape have been destroyed by this "offshoring" activity.  It is clearly not possible for a US supplier or vendor to compete with $1/day wages or anything approaching it, yet this is the "competitive supplier" environment over in China and elsewhere. 

The Truth is that America and China are locked in a deadly embrace.  They're not buying our Treasury Debt to be nice or "support" us.  They're buying because we have exported our inflation to them for more than two decades, and they're desperately trying to prevent it from destroying them.  See, when you make $1/day (or $2/day) inflation is the difference between eating and not eating, and hungry people have a habit of reaching for pitchforks.  Since there are about 1 billion of them (ordinary Chinese) and a much smaller number of military and leadership, well.... you do the math.

But that "buying" of our Treasury Debt has fueled your (and your Republican cronies) desire to spend beyond all reason.  This distortion has allowed the government to blow money it does not have for more than a decade without watching interest rates ratchet inexorably upward, as happened to Bill Clinton and those before him.

The problem is whatever can't continue forever won't, and if you've been induced to borrow "interest only" (as our government always has) and the interest rates start to rise you can be bankrupted even if you stop borrowing.  Your refusal to recognize that nobody can survive for long when you take in only half of what you spend, borrowing the rest, is an outrage and insult to anyone with an IQ larger than their shoe size.

Speaking of outrages, let's go down the list of current ones.  We can start with the SIGTARP report on AIG and their counterparties.  While AIG might have been free (under the law) to sell "insurance-like contracts" with no capital behind them, there is nothing that forced The NY Fed (and The Federal Reserve generally) to allow regulated bank-like entities to purchase those swaps and count them as "money good hedges."  Yet the very boob who apparently did that, along with intentionally overpaying counterparties, was appointed by you to head the Treasury.  I suppose none of us should be surprised at this revelation by Mr. Barofsky, given that one of Timmy's qualifications to head the Internal Revenue Service was that he didn't even bother paying his own taxes.  You do realize the example this set for other Americans, right?  Is that wise, given that the government is undoubtedly going to try to extract more and more tax money from the rest of us in the years to come?

Then there are people like Lloyd Blankfein, who yesterday "apologized" for "participating in things that were clearly wrong."  I know you created a "government-wide task force" as of yesterday to "fight financial fraud", but somehow I doubt we'll see the person who made a public admission yesterday of "participating in things that were clearly wrong" in the dock.  Indeed, yesterday we were treated to a revelation that Sacramento is suing a bunch of banks for bid-rigging and kickbacks - suspiciously similar to what apparently happened in Jefferson County Alabama, in which JP Morgan/Chase agreed to a fine and "foregone profits" of nearly three quarters of a billion dollars - while "not admitting guilt."  Pardon my cynicism, but I've yet to see anyone willingly hand over nearly 3/4 of a billion dollars unless they're concerned that they might lose a lawsuit or worse, be found guilty in a criminal trial.  It would seem to me that this "task force", if it really is intended to do something productive, would start at the top - with Racketeering prosecutions aimed at our largest financial firms.  But that's not going to happen, is it?

Speaking of "OCCE" (operating a continuing criminal enterprise), what about drug companies?  There's a bit of a problem there too, no?  Are not the drug companies one of the beneficiaries of your alleged "Health Care Reform"?  After all, you're not going to strip them of their re-importation protection, are you?  Why not? 

Far more important however is where a "gentlemen" (Kindler) wound up after not one but two criminal guilty pleas by Pfizer for the same crime.  He was elected to the board of the NY Fed.  Are you as proud of Pfizer's record as is Mr. Kindler is as their former CEO and General Counsel?  It appears so - not only does your "health care" proposal not bar deals with drug companies that have twice pled guilty to the same felony, not only is Pfizer still operating as a corporation (where any "natural person" who did the same sort of thing would be sitting in the hoosegow) but in addition you've sat back silently while their CEO is appointed to one of the chief banking regulatory positions in The United States!

Here's the problem at the end of the day Mr. President.

You were elected on a platform of "Hope and Change."  In point of fact the only change we got is the change at the bottom of our pockets - all the rest of our money has been siphoned off by the very same robber barons and banksters that have corrupted our nation for decades.  You've done exactly nothing to prosecute them for their previous actions or prevent them from doing the same things in the future.  Nearly a year after your election Citibank served upon the American people a 29.9% "rate jack" on their credit cards - an "atomic bird" served up by one of the largest financial firms in The United States, and one that the government now owns a large stake in.  This was a slap in the face of Americans by THE GOVERNMENT - that is, YOUR ADMINISTRATION.

You claim to be for the working class people in this country, yet you bow down to China paying people $1/day to assemble junk products, from capacitors that explode (found in literally millions of pieces of electronics) to melamine-laced "food products" to poisonous toothpaste to corrosive drywall that destroys wiring, plumbing, and, allegedly, the lungs of US Citizens.

We continue to hear that we "must reform health care" yet just recently Pfizer pled guilty to a criminal felony that it previously, years ago, pled guilty to before.  Nobody went to prison, and the fine levied was less than 1% of the firm's market capitalization.  A mere cost of doing business.  These are the "engines" of Americans' health you wish to protect with laws that force we the people to pay for the development of drugs and medical devices that are then used worldwide - without the rest of the world paying "their fair share" for the developments that save their lives.  We're a generous people but don't you think such charity should be by choice rather than extracted at gunpoint? 

You refuse to step in and force The Fed to be audited, even though you could get behind Representative Paul and demand it happen.  Why?  Is it because you're protecting the very people who ripped us all off?  There are those who believe the true purpose of your Chinese trip is to find a way to pry open the doors in China so our Banksters can loot them, since the blood all seems to be gone from Americans - the vampires simply drank too much and killed us all.  There's one small problem with that plan, if indeed it is your intention - in China they shoot people for the sorts of things that the banksters did over here.  Call it a "feature" of Communism if you'd like.

Let's face it: America may need some protectionism.  Americans can't be expected to compete with $1/day - or $2/day - in wages.  While this "looks good" for a little while as prices come down just as business profits look good when you fire people in the quarter you do it (witness the last two quarters of "earnings") those employees who lost their jobs can't buy anything in the future, as their income has evaporated!  They wind up on the dole, and this drives our budget deficit from 20% of our Federal Budget to roughly 50%.  The pegs and forced buying of Treasuries that have allowed this to happen won't last forever, and when (not if) they snap they will force a Federal Government default.  Thus, my statement in the open letter to China's Premier - we're not going to pay you. 

Some have claimed in comments I received that my views in that letter are some sort of jingoistic orgasm.  Nothing could be further from the truth; my views are simply an expression of mathematical fact.  Math is the only true science.

Speaking of the math, I'm sure you're aware that about half the nation loved you at the time of your election and the other half hated you.  That's a "feature" of American politics, of course.  But I would be concerned for your job security down the road if you don't change course.  After all, the SEUI and UAW both were strong supporters, as were the "ordinary people" who bought into your "hope and change" mantra.

The problem is that you haven't kept any of those promises.  Your "stimulus" didn't, your "Recovery Czar" has refused to certify the jobs "saved or gained" numbers (that's because they're flat lies, as is obvious from the employment situation report's household survey) and a huge stock market rally aside, there hasn't been any real turn in the economy.  Instead Wall Street is feasting on the destruction of the dollar, which is a direct consequence of your policies - spending more than one makes eventually destroys confidence in the strength of your balance sheet, and the puerile acts of a Fed Chairman who you claim to support for re-appointment in his futile attempt to keep the musical chairs game going isn't helping matters.  You could stop this tomorrow by demanding that Bernanke raise rates to a mere 2% immediately or you'll replace him with someone who will - after all, his reconfirmation has not yet occurred, and your nomination can be withdrawn.  You could fire Timmy and direct Mr. Holder to prosecute all of the crooks on Wall Street that stole the hopes and dreams of millions of Americans, then looted their retirement accounts on top of it.  While your admission of the obvious this morning - that "too much debt could lead to a double-dip" sounds good, the fact of the matter is that it is your administration that has piled on most of this debt - and continues to do so.  Are you admitting - in advance - to what's to come next year?

Best of luck to you Mr. President - from where this commentator sits, given the underlying realities of the economy and exploitation of our working class and your willful blindness to the mathematical realities of our fiscal and economic situation, you're going to need it.

Sorry Lloyd: NO SALE

“We participated in things that were clearly wrong and have reason to regret,” Blankfein, 55, said at a conference in New York hosted by the Directorship magazine. “We apologize.”

But then there's this...

Goldman Sachs, the most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history, had a record profit in the first nine months of this year and set aside $16.7 billion for compensation expenses.

No they didn't.  Their "profit" was entirely ill-gotten.

About $10 billion from the government via the AIG conduit, which they had a ZERO chance of collecting had AIG filed bankruptcy.

Another $21 billion financed at RADICALLY below-market rates due to government guarantees - that is, an explicit taxpayer subsidy.

That money is not Goldman's.  It is ours.

Furthermore, the standard for forgiveness among Christian faiths for sins requires certain things.  Specifically one must:

• Be sorry for one's sin.  Lloyd professes to be.  Ok.
  
  
• Forswear sin in the future.  To do so one must identify the specific sin(s) for which one is atoning.  So far, Lloyd hasn't done that.  Exactly what things did you do that were wrong Lloyd, and why are you trying to evade whatever lawful and reasonable punishment might come from making a full account of your activity?
  
  
• Make penance where possible.  In this case it is possible, since the sin involved money.  Yet Goldman and Lloyd have made no penance whatsoever, despite the myriad people who got hosed as a direct and proximate cause of activities he now admits were wrong for Goldman to engage in.

Goldman may be the "most profitable" Wall Street firm but I will simply observe that it is trivially simple to be "profitable" when one does wrong, since it is always easier to make money by doing wrong than by acting with honor and propriety.

No Lloyd, your apology is not accepted, as it is insincere.  You are simply trying to deflect attention from the well-deserved hit to your reputation - a reputation that, from my perspective, is somewhere south of Satan's.

Have a nice day Jackass and may you burn in Hell.

Dear Wen Jaibao:

We in America have noted with concern your nations' expression of alarm at our Federal Reserve's blatant money-printing, debt monetization, and interference in the free markets, in particular the recent commentary of China's bank regulator cited here:

“The continuous depreciation in the dollar, and the U.S. government’s indication, that in order to resume growth and maintain public confidence, it basically won’t raise interest rates for the coming 12 to 18 months, has led to massive dollar arbitrage speculation,” he told reporters in Beijing today at the International Finance Forum.

Liu said this has “seriously affected global asset prices, fuelled speculation in stock and property markets, and created new, real and insurmountable risks to the recovery of the global economy, especially emerging-market economies.”

Mr. Liu is correct, of course.  However, yesterday afternoon Ben Bernanke gave you the finger, first in his speech  and then later in the Q&A in which he said:

Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said it’s “not obvious” that asset prices in the U.S. are out of line with underlying values after a 64 percent jump in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index from its March low.

Donald Kohn, another Fed Governor, erected his middle finger in your direction as well with his comments last night and Yellen added her view this morning in which they also both said "we see no bubble."  That's three. 

How many more times do you need to be flipped off before you get it: The Fed isn't going to do what you want, and neither is Obama.  Get over yourself.

On the objective measures the price/earnings multiple of the S&P 500 currently stands at over 130, more than double its previous record and vastly beyond anything achieved even in China's manipulated and overheated markets.  In short, they're lying and they don't care. 

Welcome to American Politics Mr. Wen.

(In the event you're not aware, "the finger" is the extended middle finger pointed in your direction, a universal American insult that, roughly translated, asks that you be fornicated.  I do not know what an equivalent insult is in Chinese.)

Now that I have your attention by making sure you that you realize that our Central Bank has flipped you off, let me point out something you should be aware of:

The so-called "paper" you hold denominated in our dollars will not be paid in full.

Let me put forward a few realities you may not be aware of, since you are the Premier of a Communist Nation where there is no freedom of the press nor, for that matter, any of the other freedoms guaranteed in our Bill of Rights.  That is, you head a nation where you believe the government has rights and the serfs, er, population has privileges you grant, where our founding documents express the precise opposite view - we believe that all people have rights that are endowed by our creator, that government can secure and protect rights but is incapable of bestowing them (since it didn't have them in the first place), and that government has mere privileges granted by the people - and that the people have the right to revoke those privileges.

Here's the problem you face, in a nutshell, just to make sure you read it correctly the first time: 

We're not going to pay.

First, we (the citizens) didn't enter into these obligations.  You pursued a mercantilist strategy that involved, among other things, near-literal enslavement of your citizens under working conditions equal to or worse than those we imposed on the Africans we forcibly imported into this nation (that is, kidnapped) in the 1600s and 1700s.  We eventually figured out that this was abusive and stupid, although it took a civil war for us to do so.  You've yet to figure it out - you punish dissent with tanks and bullets while refusing to recognize basic human rights.  You build schools and other structures that collapse in minor earthquakes or when 3" of snow falls on their roofs, claiming this is "progress", when the native Americans that inhabited this nation were capable of constructing buildings of nothing more than sticks and animals skins that remained standing under similar conditions.  Using this slave labor, having destroyed our middle class workforce via offshoring, you have then sent back to us poisoned children's toys, toothpaste and drywall, and demanded that we pay for these poisonous and dangerous products with good money.  As a consequence we the people don't like you very much.  In fact, some of us would be quite content to invite you to dinner - as the main course.

Next, it is clear that you have strong-armed our government into exchanging toxic securities you bought from private actors for "good credit" US Treasuries.  You are among those who have played the "Financial Armageddon" card with a fair measure of success.  Precisely what you said and to whom you said it has not been publicly disclosed, but that threats were part of the negotiation is essentially assured, since nobody in their right mind would exchange used toilet paper for good Treasury Debt otherwise.  Yet our government wasn't the agent of the original fraud - those were private corporations and actors.  Instead of doing what reasonable people do - that is, sue in a US Court and hold the guilty to account - you decided to play geopolitics.  You have that right, but we have the right to tell you to stuff it - today or tomorrow.  That day will come I can assure you.

Third, there is the matter of our citizens waking up to the scams - including your scams.  An increasing number of citizens in this country have had enough of the BS and, having been ignored when EESA/TARP was debated (by over 100:1 we told Congress not to bail out those bastards who ripped both us and you off) are intentionally reducing their output.  This of course reduces the tax base against which our government can extract money to pay you with.  Further, our government has over the space of more than 30 years embarked on programs that allow any US Citizen to effectively live for free, paying nothing.  There's not a thing you can do about this, and we both can and are de-funding our government's ability to tax.  Have a look at tax receipts - the government is running a near-$2 trillion deficit for this reason above all others.  Attempts to raise taxes on the remaining productive citizens simply cause more of them to decide to join those who erect their middle finger toward Washington DC, choosing Food Stamps and Medicaid over hard work.  There's a phrase for this: "Going Galt."  I recommend you read Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" - I'm sure there's a Chinese translation somewhere, although I suspect you shot the translator after he completed the work, lest he gain "subversive" thoughts and communicate them to others. 

Trust me when I tell you we're just as pissed off about the frauds and scams as you are, but that doesn't give you the right to obligate we the people who were not the architects of these scams and frauds to pay for them, and we will not accept any such putative "obligation."  Go take your gripe up with Mr. Paulson, Bernanke, Geithner, Obama, Bush and those who peddled all this crap worldwide.  Your beef is with them, not us, and we hold that those who commit bad acts are where the liability for same begins and ends.

Finally, we have the matter of our children and those yet unborn.  They did not consent to any of this - not even the rampant consumerism you fueled in this nation with your slave labor and pegged currency.  They have no obligation whatsoever to you or to any debt contracted by anyone prior to their coming of age, and it is highly unlikely they will consent to be bound to it.  The privation necessary for us and our children to pay - that is, reducing our working class to an income of $2/day to match your serfs (who thus far have surprisingly not found their 750 million pitchforks yet) isn't going to happen.

You proceed from the unfounded belief that our government will be able to extract this effort from us via either voluntary compliance with ever-rising taxation or the employment of naked force at arms.  This is not a sound assumption.  Americans have a long history of suffering various usurpations and injustices, but Americans also have a history of "snapping" when pushed too far.  Ask the British about what happened at Concord on April 19th, 1775.

Sooner or later, whether by peaceful election or less-than-peaceful means, a leader will arise in America who will contemplate erecting the middle finger back in your direction, just as many Americans have flipped off Washington DC.  Ben Bernanke, Mr. Kohn and Ms. Yellen are just the first three you've seen in our officials who are willing to tell you where to stick your expectations - the day will come, I assure you, where a decision is made to simply tell you to stuff it at the highest levels of our government.  Yes, such a declaration - that your alleged and dear "Treasuries" are in fact nothing more than toilet paper - would have severe geopolitical consequences.  So what?  By then our nation will be incapable of paying anyway - a default by any other name is still default.  But our citizens, unlike yours, are and will be armed - go ask Admiral Yamamoto about the wisdom of considering an attempt to enforce your alleged debt by force.  While you're at it count the blades of grass in our nation.  I think you can figure the rest out for yourself.

Worse for you, while we would suffer were America to turn isolationist, we would survive.  Your nation and its people would not.

Let me give you a piece of advice: Sell your Treasuries and dollars while you can.

Oh, you'd love to do that, wouldn't you?  But you can't, and you know it.  See, you've entered into a pact with the devil - a devil of your own creation.  Should you sell a material amount of your holdings you would collapse the Treasury market and receive only pennies on the dollar.  Further, you would instantaneously cut off your trade flow into the United States - the rise in interest rates this would provoke over here would  force our citizens to spend only what they earn, as the cost of credit would rocket higher - much higher.  It would also force an immediate default on whatever was left of your alleged "Treasuries" as our government would be forced to repudiate your holdings to remain solvent.  When it comes down to "you or us", let me assure you, it will be us.  This in turn would cause all your poison toy, drywall, toothpaste and melamine-laced baby food factories to close.  Without that meager $2/day salary you would have 750 million hungry and angry Chinese who just might figure out what a pitchfork's best and highest use is.  We, on the other hand, would chuckle mightily as we returned to actual hard work - for our benefit, not yours.

So let's cut the crap Mr. Premier.  You have no good way out of this dance with the devil.  The amusing part of this is that you're reduced to the position of a petulant child who can't have that next candy bar - you scream loudly but have the balls of a baby, unable to do a damn thing about the increasing number of middle fingers erected in your direction - now by our Central Bank, and soon by the highest levels of our government.

If you have trouble reading the intent behind those three birds being flown in your direction, I assure you - those are only the first three of many you will recognize in the months and years to come.  We the people of America, having been abused with your poisoned toys, toothpaste and construction materials, are taking great amusement in the fact that an alleged "superpower's" Premier in reality has no more power to effect geopolitical outcomes than the incessant howling of a 2-year old child.

Have a nice day.

Interesting note on methodology noted by a forum user (Licorice):

Each month, questionnaires are mailed to a probability sample of approximately 5,000 employer firms selected from the larger Monthly Retail Trade Survey (MRTS). Firms responding to MARTS account for approximately 65% of the total national sales estimate. Advance sales estimates are computed using a link relative estimator. The change in sales from the previous month is estimated using only units that have reported data for both the current and previous month. There is no imputation or adjustment for nonrespondents in MARTS.

Got it?

The number is cooked.  Only same-store sale changes count and those stores that closed or were newly opened are ignored.

This implies that the report will may slightly understate results in a rapidly-expanding environment for the first month (although that understatement will be corrected via revisions in the second month) but is almost certain to grossly overstate results in a weakening consumer retail environment - and those overstatements will not be corrected.

Here's why.

A new store (that has no "last month" history) will typically have low sales numbers for its first month of operation, simply because nobody knows it's there.  While most stores have some sort of "grand opening" or other promotion linked to their inception, the usual "buzz" associated with that tends to be fleeting (days.)  Traffic then tends to build with familiarity, assuming that the store is successful.  Since in a flat market this traffic comes from other competitors, the "new store" impact would tend to be neutral or slightly positive beyond actual sales results.  That is, the traffic taken by the new store (from existing retailers) will be counted, because the retailer that loses to the new store is counted and the new store is also counted.  The numbers balance; the under-reporting is limited to the initial "grand opening", which is normally a one-off until traffic and familiarity builds, and the new store is reported both for prior and current months as soon as the first month passes.  This causes a revision (upward) in the second month of operation to the prior month's results.

But a closed store is ignored in the month it fails, and the traffic that shifts FROM it to other stores pumps their comps .vs. the previous month.  Therefore, as stores close it looks like retail activity actually increased when in fact at best it was flat.

Examples will make this clear.

We start with one store in the world that has net sales of "100".

Store #2 opens with sales of 10.  Half of that is new activity, half comes from Store #1.  First month shows a sales report of "95", a decrease.  But in the next month Store #2's numbers come online, the "95" is revised to the (true) 105, and Store #2s numbers (which have climbed to 60, while Store #1 has lost share and now also has an amount of 60) are all reportable.  Net activity is now accurate at 120 and the previous month is revised to the (true) net 105.

Store #1 and #2 both are operating with sales of 60.  Store #2 fails, and half of its business goes to Store #1.  In the month it fails Store #1 shows an increase and Store #2's numbers are DROPPED ENTIRELY, since it did not report.  This is not revised.  We now report a "50% increase" in retail activity, which is total crap - we really had a 25% net decrease for the current month.  But the revision to the previous month does get posted, and depresses the previous month's numbers.

Did this just happen?

The August to September 2009 percent change was revised from -1.5 percent (±0.5%) to -2.3 percent (±0.3%).

Oh, it did!  Now we know where the revision to the previous month came from - stores closed in the present month and their sales loss was intentionally dropped from the current month.

Cute folks, cute.  This intentional omission of stores that fail to report for the current month but did for the previous, instead of counting a closed store as the zero that it is, mean that so-called "improvements" by competitors who pick up the previous store's traffic are not balanced by the loss of the failed store.

As such the report intentionally overstates results and you cannot obtain an accurate magnitude for the distortion.  You can, however, detect that it happened by the negative revision to the previous month's data - and in this case, we got a big one.

If you were wondering how we can possibly have "improving" retail sales data when sales tax information from the states refuses to reflect this alleged "improvement" in retail sales, along with how states can post double-digit sales tax declines while "retail sales" are down by a much smaller percentage, you now understand.  The Census Bureau intentionally lies by omitting the "zero" for a store in the month it closes - that loss of sales is never reported - not even retrospectively in a revision the next month.

The Market Ticker once again dissects The Goebbels Information Bureau residing in our Government.