As usual, we are being told that the weather is the problem:
Spending by households unexpectedly dropped for the first time in seven months, as a typhoon kept shoppers at home and a tax increase weighed on sentiment.
Bloomberg
In fact, just a quick look at the chart should tell you that we may now be resuming a trend which was all too evident across a big part of 2006, typhoon or no typhoon. We haven't seen any upward movement in consumption worth speaking about since May. now
