And of course, we’re talking sales, not profit. The Times article also makes mention of the fact that a large part of the sales were in “loss leader” items, which are sold at or below cost.

So, yeah, pretty sucky sales season.

feeblemind has managed to find another nail – if the MSM actually said something like the “Despite higher fuel costs – which impact all prices across the board – the sales still grew at 3.6%. ” stated by Gaius, then they would be admitting that the Bush administration might be doing something right in regard to the economy. Can’t have that! They have spent the last seven (almost) years doing their best to make the Bush handling of the economy look like a disaster. Show me one week in the last seven years when there hasn’t been at least one news story about how bad the economy is – if you can find one (you won’t).

The simple fact is that our economy, on 9/11/2001 took it’s biggest and most dangerous hit since the “Black Tuesday” (October 29, 1929) while it was in the middle of a downslide that began during the last year of the Clinton administration. Yet, within a year the downslide stopped, turned into an upswing, and the economy (and jobs) have been growing every since then. The MSM has reported none of this and has tried to turn every gain into a negative (they’re not good enough jobs, housing isn’t growing fast enough, etc.).