More news you won’t hear on TV…

Every year, the newspapers and TV talking heads make dire predictions about how bad the holiday shopping season will be, how bad sales will be for the nation’s retailers. They have been wrong four of the last five years. This year, no exception. In mid-October, it started in earnest – daily droning on about how worried retailers were, how high gas prices, heating bills, hurricanes, the war, etc. would surely ruin retailers’ selling season.

However, the National Retail Federation concluded a complex analysis of the months ahead and released a detailed study in September, projecting a solid 5% or better increase in retail sales 4th quarter of 2005 vs. the prior year’s 4th quarter. On October 31st , Ellen Davis of the Federation appeared on Neil Cavuto’s show on FOX News and affirmed the Federation’s projections for a robust, successful holiday retail season.

In fact, the Federation’s analysts now believe that recent meteorologists’ forecasts of milder winter temperatures in the northeast and Midwest may serve to spur an even healthier increase in retail sales this year. These positive predictions are rarely and sparingly reported – and even when they are, most commentators add their completely unqualified gloom-and-doom opinion, saying something like “…but it could be really bad if we go into a deep freeze and heating costs skyrocket.” Nuts to ‘em.