Harun I.'s note in your December 13 posting on holiday shopping (or the lack thereof) prompts me to offer another bit of anecdotal information. Except for groceries, I do most of my shopping on-line -- books, music, movies, clothes, contact lenses, medicine, computers, wine, even big-ticket items like living room furniture -- so I get a ton of e-mail offers from the sites that I've done business with. What has really struck me over the past few weeks is not only the sheer quantity of the "special offer" e-mails coming in, but the increasingly generous concessions that on-line retailers seem willing to make, especially in the area of shipping ("free shipping for the next five days!" "free FedEx second-day through the 17th!" "free shipping on all orders over $50!"). Even L.L. Bean, which years ago disappointed me when they started charging for regular shipping, has had to make concessions for the holidays. The overall tone strikes me as almost desperate -- you don't carpet-bomb the ether with discounts if business is booming. Perhaps this is another little indicator that the canary down in the coalmine has been feeling some shortness of breath lately?

I forget how exactly I happened upon your blog, but it's been required reading now for at least half a year -- thanks so much for your excellent work.

J.M.

I went out mid last week, early in the mid evening (after rush hour) to do some shopping. Hit Best Buy and Target. I was shocked: it was dead.

It was not Black Friday, but we're talking mid December here.

I've seen nothing like this in my life.

The official reports stink to high heaven, which I had already gathered when noting that no one could decide whether Black Friday sales were up 22%, or 12%, or maybe just 6%. No one could get the story straight. Yet at the same time Wal-Mart revenues were down; Best Buy, down; Home Depot, down, etc. Wal-Mart alone is $330bln of the economy per year... it overshadows everything else. That should be the only bellwether needed.

Aaron K.