The charts below give us a rather different view of the U.S. retail economy and the long-term behavior of the consumer. The sales numbers are adjusted for population growth and inflation. For the population data I've used the Bureau of Economic Analysis mid-month series available from the St. Louis FRED with a linear extrapolation for the latest month. Inflation is based on the latest Consumer Price Index. April retail sales adjusted accordingly declined 0.2% from March.

"As of January 2010, the duration of the current recession stands at 25 months and counting. By lasting this long, it has vaulted into 5th place on the career list, surpassing the 24-month long recession of January 1910 to January 1912. It’s the Ken Griffey of recessions. Next one in our sights is the 32-month long post-Civil War recession that ran from April 1865 to December 1867."

BE SURE to click through and load the images.

"Last week I read in the morning paper about a street here where 60 out of 66 homes were vacant or abandoned on a single block. The reporter called it a "ghost street." Yesterday I found myself in the area. Other than an errant sofa, the street was completely empty, almost peaceful. I took a photo of every house on the north side of one block and then stitched them together. If you were to compare the current international housing crisis to a black hole sucking the equity out of our homes, this one-way street near the northern border of Detroit might just be the singularity: the point where the density of the problem defies anyone's ability to comprehend it. These homes started emptying in 2006."

Scroll all the way through, and look at every one.

For example:

"New Home Months of Supply

The months of supply is at an all time record 13.3 months in January."

This is what redisintermediation sounds like.

"Judges spend all day enforcing the code of law. They get offended when parties to a suit are cavalier about the law or rules of procedure."

"Sam Zell is widely regarded as one of the savviest value investors around. The fact that Zell, an old hand in real estate, was cashing out was widely seen as the sign of a market top."