Consumer spending? Way too much

Pretzels, tattoos, and gambling can save the U.S. economy. In "By the Numbers: How Americans Spend Their Money," Lucas Reilly reports that in 2011, Americans spent trillions shopping for all sorts of sine qua nons: $550 million on pretzels, $96 billion on beer (much of it, presumably, to go along with all those pretzels), $2.3 billion on tattoos, $66 million on tattoo removal (much of it, no doubt, to obliterate the names of former loves), $34.6 billion on gambling, and scads of others.

Stephen Goldstein

December 9, 2012