The U.S. Census Bureau recently released their July 2020 Advance Monthly Sales for Retail and Food Services report. Adjusted for seasonal variation, July sales totaled $536.0 billion, which represents a 1.2 percent increase over June’s numbers ($529.4 billion). This marks the third consecutive month with increases in U.S. consumer...

In the late 1990s, as a banker in Wilmington, North Carolina, one of my best customers maintained a huge DDA account, borrowed a cool million each year to expand, used treasury services, kept healthy balance sheet, earned solid profits, and had an experienced management team. This customer was a convenience store chain.