Retail sales fall to lowest in eight months The federal debt grew $2.4 trillion since Obama took office

WASHINGTON, DC—More evidence of a double-dip recession comes on the heals of a Commerce Department report showing retail sales fell to their lowest level in eight months. Retail sales fell 1.2 percent in May, with auto sales falling 1.7 percent. The last slump came in September 2009, when retail sales fell 2.2 percent.

With consumer spending accounting for about 70 percent of economic activity, the decline leads analysts to believe the recovery may not only be jobless, but slip into another downturn, resulting in a W-shaped recovery, something economists having been debating. The two schools of thought are divided between a U-shaped recovery, which early indicators seemed to prove, but more recent events such as the European debt crisis, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and the early health care reform measures are dragging the economy back down, creating a W-shaped recovery.

Department store sales fell 1.8, but gardening and building material stores took a 9.3 percent hit while the economic growth rate remains under three percent, estimated to be about 2.75 percent by Philadelphia Federal Reserve President Charles Plosser—well under the normal rate of growth to carry a country out of a recession—which would be about 3.5 to 4 percent.

-- Killswitch Politick

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