How will Joe Biden recover from this… y’know, after a surprisingly strong 5.2% economic growth in the third quarter, ongoing job creation, and now consumer spending during the holiday season increased by 3.1% over last year, according to data from Mastercard (which is not Visa) as reported by Reuters. The number came in less than the 3.7% forecast likely due to increased credit card interest rates, and far lower than the 7.3% increase seen in 2022, as retailers discounted merchandise deeply rid themselves of excess stock from the pandemic. The number, though, is closer to pre-pandemic increases which typically ran between 2.5-4%.