Since my last posting, which was strictly about Black Friday, I've learned that retail sales for the entire post-Thanksgiving weekend, Friday through Sunday, were a whopping 7.1 percent higher than on the same weekend last year and that retail analysts expect overall sales this holiday season to be 2.2 percent higher than in 2007.

That would be the smallest gain in six years, the pessimists point out, but I think they're missing the big picture: It's still a GAIN ... at a time when the U.S. economy clearly is contracting.

If you ask me, that's pretty remarkable.