More data follies. Had to respond to a tenant complaining of poor retail sales. Took a notion to check retail sales for the area. Guess the rainfall data follies should have prepared me. But no, naive I guess, too ready to trust in essential goodness. Three hours later I still had no data unhidden by a paywall.

On one hand I can appreciate that few people these days are inclined to venture into raw data, on the other hand free information is essential to a free society. We are paying these guys! Reminds me of a Paul Simon line, “The information is unavailable to the common man.”