Two weeks ago the Los Angeles Times‘ Michael Hiltzik trumpeted in his blog that the mediocre retail sales figures from Thanksgiving weekend proved that the economy was in trouble — and Hiltzik, for one, couldn’t be happier:

The ideological spinners on the state of the U.S. economy made much of the recent upward revision in third-quarter GDP numbers and even more of retailers’ initially upbeat claims about “Black Thursday” crowds, as though honest, objective reporting that cited the tapped-out consumer, layoff announcements, and high energy prices were nothing but lefty attacks on the superb economic leadership of George W. Bush. Wait till the November retail sales figures arrive on Thursday, they said–that’ll prove that this is gonna be one of the best Christmas seasons ever!

Well, the numbers are in, and they stink.

… The goal here isn’t schadenfreude, but realism. You can praise tax cuts for the wealthy as a great economic growth tool until you convince yourself it’s true, but things will always look a lot different down here on Planet Earth.

We posted then (“LA Times Columnist Only Blogging About The Bad News“) that Hiltzik grabbed the nearest number that “proved” his point: Bush policies = bad, all else = good. This seemed odd coming from someone so concerned about ideological spinning of economic news.

The day after his post, the strong November jobs report showed the weakness of his single-factor “analysis.” Did he provide an update? No …

What happened last week? Let’s just say Hiltzik may regret hanging his hat on that single retail sales stat. In order of importance:

• Q3 productivity revised to a 4.7% annual growth rate, the fastest in two years and ahead of expectations. This is hugely important. (story)

• Unit labor costs also fell at a 1% annual rate in Q3, which was good news for inflation hawks. (story)

• Factory orders increased 2.2% in October, a little ahead of expectations and reversing a September drop. (story)

• Initial jobless claims rose from 321,000 to 327,000 in the week ended December 3. Some sources blamed filings delayed by the Thanksgiving holiday. (story)

• Consumer sentiment improved in early December, but remains below the level set before the hurricanes and gasoline price spike. This has “only a loose connection with consumer spending.” (story)

• The inventory-to-sales ratio fell to a record low in October, indicating that manufacturing activity should increase in the future. (story)

To paraphrase Hiltzik, the numbers are in, and they’re good. Hiltzik derided as “imbecilic” the notion that newspaper industry layoffs are driving pessimistic economic reporting. It seems to us that we either give that notion some credence, or count Hiltzik and his ilk as just one more group of the “ideological spinners” he so derides.

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If you want to keep track on your own, MarketWatch has a nice page showing expectations and actuals for key economic data. The most recent retail figures show that the Christmas shopping season should be OK — not great, but not horrible either.

We always include this, but no one ever does it: our other Hiltzik posts are here (plus, perhaps more interesting, one about a hot French anchorwoman!).

Technorati Tags: economics, economy, LA Times, LAT, Los Angeles Times, Michael Hiltzik

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 13th, 2005 at 1:06 pm by A Senior Administration Official and is filed under I knew I'd use my Econ major, LA Times' Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, Nemesises ... Nemesi?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.