Economic Insights – June 2012

For the past three years, the news has been relentlessly bearish.  And yet, amid all this, the U.S. economy keeps moving forward. 
 
Consumer spending is at a record high, measured in both real and nominal terms.  Retail sales were up in April for the 21st time in the past 22 months.  In terms of consistency, this rivals the 1998-99 streak of 16 straight monthly gains, a period everyone now looks back on as a boom.  Real, inflation-adjusted retail sales were up 4 percent from a year earlier. 

U.S. consumer.....