attorney general bill barr was so convinced the fbi unfairly targeted trump that he called in john durham to investigate the investigators. in all the probe cost more than $6.5 million but as paula reid noted had little success in court as paula noted durham indicted three people, they were charged with lying to the fbi, both found not guilty and a mid-level lawyer pleaded guilty to doctoring a warrant to serve a certificate warrant. as for trump he wrote his supporters this last night, the american public was scammed just as it is being scammed right now. sara? just in, new numbers show spending by american consumers rose last month after two months of declines. retail sales rose by 0.4% in april from the prior month. cnn s chief business correspondent and anchor of cnn s early start christine romans is here now.
let s get a check on cnn business this friday morning looking at markets around the world. asian markets closed down. covid-19 outbreaks still dogging construction and manufacturing. europe also a lower tone early on. here on wall street stock index futures down here after this ominous warning from fedex raising new alarms about the economy. fedex parking cargo aircraft, closing offices, reducing sunday ground operations. fedex grappling with higher fuel and labor costs and package delivery weakness in asia. dow fell 173 points. s&p 500 nasdaq fell by more than 1% each. retail sales rose by 0.3%. unemployment dropped to a 3-month low. gas prices dropping again, now $3.69 a gallon. mortgage rates are highest since 2008. freddie mac averaging 6.02% this week, up from last week and more
allison is following all of it. a collective sigh of relief here. you took the words out of my mouth, poppy. if you could hear that sigh of relief from the business community. when the news came down that railroad workers won t go on strike, i can t underscore after i ve talked with countless business leaders over the last days how destructive a rail strike could have been to the u.s. economy because such a wide v variety rely on the railroad to keep businesses moving. wall street is focus on a new data point showing that retail sales unexpectly bounced back last month after falling in july. retail sales rose .3% in august and there was a surge in sales at auto dealers. falling gas prices helped to keep consumer wallets foughter and that is a drop at gas stations. more at the auto dealers. this is more complicated for the
but you need your groceries. you need to pay your rent. you re making a really good point. despite all the skyrocketing prices, retail sales rose by more than 1%. that s a lot lower than expected. what does that tell? you it tells us two things. number one, consumers are still spending so that s good news. but the second thing which is more hidden is that they re not spending as much as you think. a lot of that spending is nominal, it is not adjusted for inflation. so they re paying more for the same stuff. we re not seeing a big increase in their spending for goods and services, they re just paying more for them. that s a direct line of fire from the inflation to the consumer pocketbook. that s with the industry is seeing right now when it goes to the stores and biggest stations. let s talk about the president, who he talked, about the june economic report, saying the data doesn t actually reflect the full impact of 30 days of decreases and gas prices. do you agree with that? we