Re: Walmart sales & gas prices

[Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>]

Jim Devine wrote:

> right. I don't say that my explanation is the Truth. But I'll assume
> that's it's "true enough" until I hear another plausible explanation.
> Both explanations -- or all five etc. -- might be "true enough."
>
> (one explanation that complements the other is that WalMart sales are
> an okay measure of US economic activity in general these days.)

Not exactly. WMT is a proxy for what's happening in a segment of US
society - the bottom 30-40% of the income distribution, with a rural
bias. Their customers are probably taking a hit from gas. But there's
also some evidence that WMT itself has hit something of a wall - its
base market is saturated and needs desperately to move into more
affluent, urbanized markets, where it has serious political and image
problems. (They're just starting to advertise in Vogue to work on the
image probs, and they're trying to buy black preachers and elected
officials to work on their political probs.) Some retail analysts
think that high gas prices are as much an excuse as an explanation.

Doug