To quote the late, great Stevie Ray Vaughan, shoppers are "Caught in the Crossfire" between crime and omicron, which, as Burt Flickinger discussed with Edward Lawrence on THE EVENING EDIT, combined with inflation and price big-brand price-gouging, helps explain why consumer spending in November lagged October. Burt's alma mater PricewaterhouseCoopers reports that up to 50% of consumers are currently afraid to shop in stores.
Also: Sen. Elizabeth Warren should stop accusing grocery store chains of price gouging, and instead of pointing at 1385 Hancock Street, the Headquarters of Stop & Shop in her home district in Quincy, Massachusetts, should investigate One Betty Crocker Drive and the Headquarters of General Mills in Minneapolis, because the cost of an equivalent pound of General Mills, Kellogg or Quaker Oats cereal is now more than some cuts of steak. Like Disneyland & Disneyworld, big-brands are price prejudiced against poor people.
Looking ahead: Consumers will continue to pull back from restaurants in the New Year, drive record-high grocery sales and a pervasive switch to private label as has already happened in Canada and the UK, while we will see strikes and inflation of unprecedented proportions (unseen since Jimmy Hoffa was Teamsters President in the 1970s) with supply chains remaining broken until 2023. As the wise Paul Bauer said, "With institutional government, common sense is very uncommon these days."