Biggest Drop In U.S. Retail Sales In October On Record

A sign once again of the troubled economy President-Elect Barack Obama will be inheriting from President George Bush comes in the latest retail sales figures — which show the month of October set an unfortunate and troubling record:

Retail sales and prices of goods imported to the U.S. dropped by the most on record, signaling the economy may be in its worst slump in decades.

Purchases fell 2.8 percent in October, the fourth straight decline, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. Labor Department figures showed import prices dropped 4.7 percent, pointing to a rising danger of deflation, and a private report said consumer confidence this month remained near the lowest level since 1980.

“The weakness in growth is intensifying and inflation pressures have evaporated,” said James O’Sullivan, a senior economist at UBS Securities LLC in Stamford, Connecticut, who accurately projected the decline in sales. “Deflation is a word that will be increasingly used over the coming months.”

Spending may continue to falter as mounting job losses, plunging stocks and falling home values leave household finances in tatters. Retailers from Best Buy Co. to J.C. Penney Co. are cutting profit forecasts ahead of the year-end holiday shopping season, when many stores do most of their business.

FOOTNOTE: What’s interesting in this crisis is to listen to conservative talk radio.

When Bush took over and there were problems in the economy early in his term, talk radio hosts called it the “Clinton recession” even though Bush was in office.

Now — taking that logic argument to a new extreme – Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity blamed a day when stocks plummeted on “the Obama recession,” even though Obama has not been in office one second yet.

But for some reason the other day when stocks went up, Limbaugh and Hannity didn’t attribute that to Obama — so apparently Obama only influences the stock market while not in office yet, and only when it it goes down.

So will they blame the low retail sales on Obama too…on people worried about Obama taking office?

But then, that would be at odds with THIS. And THIS. And THIS….

UPDATE: Blog reaction is here.