Retail Sales Rise 0.8%, Mostly Lamp Oil Costs

Retail sales rose 0.8% in September, the Merchant Ministry reported Thursday, and gas prices did most of the lifting. In the Realm we call it lamp oil. Sages had forecast a gain of only 0.3%, so the number sounds cheerful until you read the footnotes. (I have read the footnotes. Four times.)

Lamp-oil stalls saw sales jump 6.4%. Strip them out and the whole realm's spending rose just 0.2%. A gallon of regular now averages 4 gp 33 cp, according to the Wayfarers' Axle Association, against under 3 gp before the war with Calimshan closed the strait. On the Loaf Index, where one honest loaf is 6 copper, that is 72 loaves per gallon, up from about 50. You could feed a village for the price of filling one wagon.

Mikael Pearse, chief realm economist at the Oxenford Ledger House, put it plainly: the jump "was almost entirely due to rising lamp-oil prices." He expects spending momentum to fade before the holiday feasts. I agree with him, and I wish I did not.

Here is the underlying economics, since the headline hides it. These figures are not adjusted for inflation, which means a shopper who buys exactly the same things at higher prices shows up as "spending more." Prices rose 3.7% over the year, so a good part of the 0.8% is the same loaves costing more coin, not more loaves leaving the shelves. Restaurants did gain 1.1% and furniture stores 1.3%, yet clothiers were flat, and the hirelings buying all this are living in a month when the realm added just 29,000 jobs.

My aunt Marigold, who keeps her savings in a boot, called to say the boot is now doing more work than her horse. She no longer rides the horse. She says the oil is too dear, and frankly the horse agrees.

Some will call this resilient consumers. Sterling Vanmoor already has, in a tone I will not repeat. But a customer who spends more on the road to market and the same inside it is not resilient. She is paying a toll. The Ministry's own tally excludes travel and inn stays, so we cannot even count what people gave up to afford the wagon.

What this means for your pantry: buy flour locally, walk where you can, and do not mistake a higher total for a fuller cupboard.

— B.T. (Loaf Index: see sidebar)