Back to the Kitchen

The economic news is so bad that we might as well wallow in it.  The latest report from the Department of Commerce is as compelling a read as the Tax Code.  It uses expressions like “coefficients of variation” that make me have flashbacks to the algebra class I took in college because a cute guy in the registration line was signing up for it.  It was the beginning of my lifelong fear of numbers and cute guys.

Fortunately, the cleverly titled “Advance Monthly Sales for Retail Trade and Food and Food Services” has pictures that even those of us with Fear of Finance can understand.  

Take the bar chart of the decline in economic indicators, for example.  All the bars are below the line, making the chart look like a cross-section of the coal mines in West Virginia.  Like the miners, the economy may not see daylight for months, or even…(Read more)