Word: explainers
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...economics alone can't explain this protectionism. To cut expenses, consumers are going out less, a phenomenon retail analysts call cocooning. Among couples, cocooning can lead to canoodling, which can lead to ... recreation. "People are spending a lot less on entertainment," says Rick Shea, a branding expert and founder of Shea Marketing Consulting. "And 'that,' for the most part, is free." (See pictures of Americans in their homes...
...what's outperforming on the shelves? A catch-all category called "seasonal general merchandise," which contains thawing salt, body warmers and gift packages with candy, was tops, with a 32% rise. Analysts explain this jump by pointing to the unusually cold and snowy winter, plus the folks who traded down their Valentine's Day purchases from fancy dinners and jewelry to smaller-ticket gift packages. Unit sales for canning and freezing supplies like jars, bags and containers were up 11.5% during the eight weeks ending on Feb. 21, making them the second best-performing category on Nielsen's list. This...
...category was also down, by a sharp 12.1%. That includes peanut butter; while you might expect people to eat more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches instead of steak during a typical recession, the salmonella outbreak likely dragged down the numbers. Canned seafood, down 13.3%, is a little harder to explain. In general, seafood costs more than other products, but if consumers are trading down to canned goods, one might think they'd be buying more of it in cans. (Read "Why We Buy the Products...
...None of the current explanations of China's GDP growth are able to explain the discrepancy between China's GDP growth and the sharp drop in imports among the developed nations. China does not have another set of nations that it can send its goods in order to replace the diminished demand from the U.S., Japan, and Europe. As unemployment in these regions continues to rise, and that looks like a certainty now, China's ability to send its manufactured goods overseas drops each month...
...documented an "impact bias in affective forecasting," which is the tendency for people to overestimate how strongly they will react to emotional events. One study showed that university professors greatly overestimate the jubilation or depression they would feel after learning whether they had been offered tenure. That may help explain both the depression among the still-employed and the relative well-being of those who lost their...