There's a new prediction from S&P Global Ratings saying holiday shopping sales growth will likely decrease about one-point-seven percent when compared with last year, but those numbers can be a little complicated -- and perhaps a little deceiving.
As an explanation, Harris County's Lone Star College Economics Professor Hank Lewis told Newsradio 740 KTRH that it's important to remember that it's a drop in sales of 1.7%, which doesn't sound huge.
"But it's still a few hundred billion dollars if it happens that way, and I believe it will."
In other words, growth is still expected, it's just not as much as last year.
The biggest factors appear to be inflation hitting the budgets of shoppers, so much so that they're cutting back on purchases.
Inflation rates are similar to these holiday spending cutbacks: Inflation is down to 2.4% in October, so the inflation rate is lower than a year ago but prices are still going up and holiday sales are expected to increase too.
And then there are worldwide transportation problems that began with the pandemic and still haven't been solved.
Bu then, wars are often disruptive to trade.
"It has to do with political instability and shipping disruptions in transportation lanes around the world, but you can't go through the Suez Canal very easily right now with a war going on."
As Professor Lewis says, "Wars are a good example of what we call Exogenous Production Shocks because wars in certain parts of the world" greatly affect world prices on goods of all kinds.