It is a fact that the majority of Americans shop at Wal-Mart, where they buy about 80 pct of Wal-Mart's global sales of $80 billion every three months, which is about 10 pct of all the money they spend. The debate is whether the month-over-month growth in same store sales for WMT will be (i) in the 2-4 pct or 3-5 pct range, and (ii) in the high, mid or low end of that range. That's reasonable.

But what I find unreasonable is a TH trying to excite Mom & Pop into believing that 10 pct and 20 pct gains are standard. Some relatively small retail operators report exceptional month over month sales gains like that, for whatever reason, and the "news" reporting is usually accompanied by the words "wow" or "terrific" or "mind-blowing" or "blow-out".

Is that not a joke? I say, if you've been in the army, you know the routine.

In my view, that would be like an investment analyst standing in the center of a Wal-Mart store and observing the current day "sale" in Department A or B or F "- to the total exclusion of everything else that was happening.

"Attention Wal-Mart shoppers, buggy whips in Aisle 19 are on sale today for just $1.78.

And there will be a rush of shoppers to Aisle 19 because people will do that. They will spend $3.00 for the gallon of gas it took them to make the return trip to Wal-Mart where they will return home with the same buggy whip they could have bought the month before at $1.94 " the one that great-grandfather bought for $0.12.

And sales for Aisle 19 will be up 18 pct M/M.