News

An economic recovery that looked poised to lift off is reverting to its characteristic sluggishness as gauges of shopping activity, job creation, wage growth and factory output flash yellow.

Companies in Texas making semiconductors, telecommunications devices, computers, and other items shipped more than $45 billion in products to other countries in 2012, according to a report by the TechAmerica Foundation, a lobbying and advocacy firm representing the technology industries. That’s a $3 billion rise from 2011.

A cost comparison of the staples of American diets shows that San Francisco prices are on par with those in Washington, D.C., a city with a more distant and tenuous connection to farmers.

Nonetheless, other numbers paint a mixed picture for a holiday spending season that began with a disappointing Black Friday and later focused on hopes that retail momentum would rise with last-minute spending.

The U.S. Census Bureau said retail and food services sales increased 3.9 percent compared with the previous October.

The company attributed a third consecutive drop in U.S. comparable-store sales to a laundry list of macroeconomic headwinds when it reported earnings last week. Wal-Mart, which forecast continued gloominess through year-end, told analysts it would watch to see if the federal health-care law would take yet another chunk out of customers’ pocketbooks.

Throughout this summer and fall, California’s gasoline prices have hovered about 40 to 45 cents per gallon above the national average. The difference has sometimes reached 50 cents.

A new report from the financial services firm anticipates the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year to be the slowest and most promotion-heavy since 2008, which was the first holiday season affected by the recession.

Back-to-school shopping failed to boost the pace of consumer spending last month and retal sales growth unexpectedly slowed, the Commerce Department said Friday.

http://www.boe.ca.gov/news/tsalescont11.htm