1115.org

Holiday sales seen modestly higher: survey (Reuters):

U.S. retailers will likely report modest sales growth this holiday season, with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. expected to be the top shopping destination, a survey conducted for Reuters this week shows.

The first in a series of holiday shopping polls by America’s Research Group found that a surprisingly large 89 percent of respondents planned to shop at Wal-Mart this year, suggesting that the retailer’s aggressive price cuts will succeed in luring more customers.

Based on a random survey of 1,000 adults, conducted Wednesday through Friday, America’s Research Group projected that holiday sales at stores open at least a year — a key retail measure known as same-store sales — would be up about 3.1 percent, roughly the same as last year.

The projected inflation rate for 2006 is 3.3%. 3.1-3.3 = -.2

And that’s before accounting for the absurd use of hedonics that leads to nonsense like this:

To most people, when the price of a 27-inch television set remains $329.99 from one month to the next, the price hasn’t changed.

But not to Tim LaFleur. He’s a commodity specialist for televisions at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the government agency that assembles the Consumer Price Index. In this case, which landed on his desk last December, he decided the newer set had important improvements, including a better screen. After running the changes through a complex government computer model, he determined that the improvement in the screen was valued at more than $135. Factoring that in, he concluded the price of the TV had actually fallen 29 percent.

With the War on Christmas set to get underway, Bring on the Fuzzy Math.