Is the Hot Economy Overheating?
Economists have all sorts of sophisticated measures of how the economy is doing, but sometimes the best indicator results from something as simple as a shopping trip.</br></br>For Cynthia Latta, principal U.S. economist for Standard & Poor's DRI, a moment of clarity came when she went to a mall recently and didn't see a single sign advertising a sale.</br></br>"I just turned around and walked out," she said, making a mental note that the lack of customer incentives was a sign that store owners had plenty of business without cutting prices, a telltale tip that the economy continues to boom.</br></br>What Latta saw at the mall was reinforced by reams of data that show that consumers, who account for fully two-thirds of the nation's economic activity, continue to spend at a pace that is remarkable eight years into an economic expansion.</br></br>Sales of cars and light trucks are booming, as are sales at chain such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Sears, Roebuck and Co. Yesterday, government figures showed that retail sales jumped a full 1 percent in May, up from just a 0.4 percent increase in April and no increase in March.