How Do Terrible Holiday Sales Indicate a Strong Economy? (Audio)

No one can deny how poor retail sales were this past holiday weekend. Yet the media is spinning this news as proof that the United States economy is improving. In his latest Schiff Radio podcast, Peter Schiff picks apart this ridiculous narrative by looking closely at retail figures, media reports on the phenomenon, US box office results, and more.

Highlights from Peter’s podcast:

“Everybody has been talking about how this is going to be a great Christmas shopping season, because the recovery is finally here. Well, I’ve been saying for months that I expected a weak holiday season. So far, it appears that my hunch is going to prove correct, because the figures are out for the four-day holiday weekend… This holiday weekend, shoppers had more hours in which to shop than in any prior holiday weekend, because of the length that stores were open… Yet despite that, and despite the big drop in gas prices…

“Instead, it was a disaster… 5% fewer people showed up to shop over the four-day weekend. So not just Black Friday, the entire weekend… Even worse, the shoppers that showed up didn’t shop as much, because they spent 11% less than they spent during 2013… 2013, by the way, was the worst year since 2009… If this holiday weekend sets the tone for the rest of the season, this will be the worst Christmas in memory…

“Why are people not shopping? Well, the National Retail Federation has an explanation… They’re basically saying that the reason sales are down is because the economy is so strong… How do you rationalize that? This is what they’re saying… ‘Since the economy is so much better and people have better jobs and they have more income, that they don’t need a deal so much… They’ve got no problem, they’re going to do their holiday shopping later. They’re not going to rush to the stores just to save a few bucks, because they’re so flush… They’re still going to go shopping, they’re just going to do it later in the season.’ …

“Who can believe that kind of nonsense? What if we had a blow-out Black Friday weekend? What if we had record sales? Do you think the National Retail Federation would have come out and said, ‘This is a bad sign. This must show how desperate Americans are. The economy must be so week that they’re more desperate than ever to get a Black Friday deal!’ Does anybody think they would have said that? Of course not! If the numbers were good, they would have used the good numbers as proof of how good the economy is…

“See, it doesn’t matter. The media is going to spin this as good news no matter what. What is it going to take for people to realize that we are going back into recession? …

“Gold is also being impacted [by this false recovery narrative]. It had a volatile session overnight. The Swiss, if you don’t know, voted down – overwhelmingly rejected a return to a modified gold standard. I guess they prefer a euro standard. There was a full-court press to try to convince the Swiss that this would be monetary suicide, but I am going to talk more at length about the Swiss gold vote and the implications for the gold market…”

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