America’s Twisted Pretzel Economy, Part 1

June retail sales allegedly rose at a booming +15.6% YoY rate, thereby reminding us once again that just because you can look it up on Bloomberg doesn’t make it true. Actually, inflation-adjusted retail sales have fallen at a -13.5% annual rate since the March peak.

Then again, the March peak was an out-of-this-world aberration that underscores just how bollixed economic life has become as a result of Dr. Fauci and the Virus Patrol shutting down the great engine of the US economy last March-April, followed by a mindless compensatory bacchanalia of spending, borrowing and printing by Washington’s Infernal Inflation Machine.