Forget the Fed, forget Congress and the White House.

You know who's really in charge of this economy?

You, from American public media.

This is MarketFiles.

In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizzdahl.

It is Thursday, today the 16th day of January.

Good as always to have you along, everybody.

Let us pause for a moment here right at the top of the program, shall we, to say a collective

thank you to the sometimes

fickle, often irascible, but amazingly dependable American consumer. Once again, we learned

from the Commerce Department this morning, consumers are driving this economy. Overall sales at

stores and car dealerships and gas stations and e-commerce sites were up

four tenths percent in December. November's data was revised up to eight tenths percent, rounding

at a pretty nice holiday season. Thank you very much. Compared to a year ago, we were spending more

on cars and furniture and electronics. To be sure, inflation is still a thing, and consumers remain not in the greatest of moods.

So we asked Marketplace's Mitchell Hartman to find out what's providing the oomph to keep spending up.

For all the worry through the fall about political uncertainty and inflation and interest rates,

plus labor strikes and hurricanes, economist Kathy Bostjansik at Nationwide says,

Consumers continue to spend at a buoyant pace wrapping up the holiday season and tapping off the year.

The consumer is really settling into a pretty stable space.

Robert Frick at Navy Federal Credit Union says spending in December was up nearly across the board.

We bought more clothes, sporting goods, cars, and furniture.

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