the idea that they are going to be held accountable for all the costs associated with this major spill in the u.s. gulf. yeah, indeed. thank you very much, jop decker. thanks a lot, alex. the latest retail sales numbers are out for the month of may painting a different picture than the latest confidence numbers. it dropped for the first time in eight months. cop assumers slashed spending on everything from cars to clothing. yet another survey shows consumer sentiment is at its highest level in 2 1/2 years. so it begs the question, what gives with that? joining me now from washington, d.c., is the retail reporter for the washington post. good morning. good morning. so you re questioning this in your latest article. what gives here? is it possible americans can feel good about the economy without spending money? well, it certainly seems that way right now. what we found is the commerce department said that retail sales figures dropped in may. a lot of economists are attribu
as a way to narrow the deficit. cody willard joins us with more on that and to parse new retail sales numbers. what is that? how does it work and it whether it affect consumers? the consumer won t notice. the fact of the matter is that the vat is a way of collecting taxes through what they call the supply chain where if you are talking about a computer it is all the guys who help make the computer and put all the pieces in it along the way or talking about a home business where someone is writing a news letter like i do and you pay someone to help write and photograph the news letter you have to through every level you going to collect those taxes. anybody that you pay collects taxes and sends that to the government and in the end, the consumer will see the price again with the same old tax on the end. where it would be a new tax is if they actually implement this on a national level. shannon: talk about retail
charges have been filed. bill: and if the guy tried to sneak a cigarette on board and causing the disruption, should he escape charges because of diplomatic immunity and the right? ahead to foxnews.com and click on the you decide link and weigh in on the question and see how others are voting. so far, 4,000 people have voted. in a moment we ll tell you the results. of our on-line poll. at foxnews.com. log on, right now, you know what, the bottom line right there, in gray? that much you that lets you know where they are. martha: that is where they are. bill: yep! martha: on the road to recovery. that is where we want to be, right, retail sales numbers coming out this morning and are showing some pretty good economic news. we got not a great jobs number this morning and it is good we re seeing the consumers are beginning to return to the stores. some big retailers have reported strong earnings, that out pace the analysts expectations, and
you keep delaying what you owe your credit card company, which is what these states are doing to these taxpayers, we know we owe you that money and have to pay it to you, don t we deserve interest on the money of ours that they are holding on to to cover their own charges? you make a good case there, martha, but let s not be all completely doom and gloom. earlier today we got some very good retail sales numbers coming in, the economy is expanding. we re probably going to see some job creation in the very near future. so on the one hand, you ve got these dire problems, but the states and their finances and the federal government and its finances, but the economy is beginning to improve and expand. martha: acokay, oorp going to leave us with that slightly sunny spot. i m not a doom and gloom guy. it s friday morning, i m always the doom and gloom guy. there are some positives out there and i want to bring them to you. martha: thank you very much, stuart, we appreciate that. bill: nor
old games. we had these existential threats from these other countries that participated and we got to fight our wars on the ice. we can t play al qaeda, so we know we can t do anything like that. i don t know who an enemy of ours would be right now. i m not going to win any medals for saying this. i say we let al qaeda field the team. i ve got a few things we could do with them too. i know. they can have their own bobsled team like the jamaicans. and at the end of the run, it just goes into a pit full of fire. i have to say, the biathlon could be interesting. isn t the enemy china? women s hockey, this weekend, the american women s team is going to beat up on the chinese women. isn t china supposed to be our this is a good, healthy outlet for tension. fair enough. they just rang the opening bell on wall street. and along with it, they re ringing in some good retail sales numbers. beenwaiting for those for a