J: On December 14, the Census Bureau absolutely blew away all analysts, forecasters and undoubtedly most retail executives with its phenomenal news on retail sales in November. As the chart shows, total retail and food services sales hit a record $492.7 billion in November on a seasonally adjusted basis. This was an increase of 0.8 percent from October and, far more impressively, a leap of 5.8 percent from November 2016. That was the biggest year-over-year increase since t

J: Congress surprised most analysts by passing a Continuing Resolution (CR) yesterday to avert a partial government shutdown that would have happened today at midnight. The vote was 235-193 in the House and a whopping (and equally surprising) 81-14 in the Senate. However, you should probably wait a while before you celebrate this latest avoidance of the dreaded “fiscal cliff.” All that this CR accomplished was to keep the government running until December 22. The affirmat