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The Land of Oz was ruled by The Wizard of Oz in the children’s novel from 1900, The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.  His subjects held the mysterious man in high regard. Dorothy and her friends even traveled to Emerald City, the capital of Oz, because they were certain he was the only person capable of solving their issues.

Industrial production suffered a second consecutive setback in October 2019 according to the Federal Reserve.  After declining 0.3 percent (upwardly revised from minus 0.4 percent), the measure of America’s physical output dropped 0.8 percent.  Likewise, the year-over-year trend was negative for a second month in a row, declining 1.1 percent.

Retail sales gained back all the prior period’s losses and then some in October 2019 according to the latest data from the Census Bureau.  This indicator rose $526.5 billion to start the final quarter after declining $525.2 billion in September.  Year-over-year, retail sales are up 3.1 percent.

Small business optimism remains high by historical standards according to the latest data from the National Federation of Independent Business.  Their small business index rose to 102.4, an uptick of 0.6 point.  This increase was fairly pervasive as eight of the ten components rose. 

The American Government’s fiscal year has begun, and the start is already deeper into the red than year ago.  During the first 31 days of fiscal 2020, our nation’s deficit reached $134.5 billion, rising 33.8 percent!  This quick dig deeper into the debt hole follows the nearly $1 trillion shortfall in 2019.

Prices continued rising in October 2019 according to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  The month-over-month tally accelerated to 0.4 percent after going unchanged in September.   However, this sudden uptick had only a marginal impact on the year-over-year statistic, rising to 1.8 percent from 1.7 percent.  Removing food and energy, leaving

There’s a disturbance in the force and technology is behind it.  For instance, do you remember how disturbing it was to rewind your VHS tape?  And even with DVDs, they had to be returned to your favorite rental location or stored with your home entertainment system.  Now we download and stream.

There wasn’t a lot to celebrate in the September 2019 Retail Sales release from the Census Bureau; however, Atlas will find a way to cheer it on later in this note.  But first we must deal with the negatives.  The headline is a good place to start as the overall statistic dropped 0.3 percent, giving back most of the prior period’s 0.4 percent gain.

American firms continued adding jobs in September 2019 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Their latest tally indicates 136,000 net new jobs were gained in the period.  However, this improvement is slower than the upwardly revised tally of 168,000 (originally 130,000) in August.  Despite the slowing rate of improvement, the unemployment rate fell to just 3.5 percent, th