By Doug Short : Note from dshort : With yesterday's release of the Consumer Price Index for September, we can now calculate Real Retail Sales for last month. Official recession calls are the responsibility of the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee, which is understandably vague about the specific indicators on which they base their decisions. While we've yet to set new highs, the trend has collectively been upward, although we have that strange anomaly caused by the late 2012 tax-planning strategy that impacted the Personal Income.