According to the movie The Princess Bride, the worst classic blunder anyone can make is to get involved in a land war in Asia. No kidding. The second is something about Sicilians and death. There is also, I’ve come to learn, an unspoken third which cautions against chasing down and then trying to break down seasonal adjustments in economic data. Some things are best left just as they are published. The Census Bureau today released its estimates for retail sales. Most pay attention only to the seasonally-adjusted version which was surprisingly positive for August 2021 (if after an unusually large downward revision to ... (full story)