This Graphic Shows How Americans Spend Money In Real Time

Watch retail sales in real time.

Prepare to be hypnotized by a second-by-second visualization of America's retail expenditures.

Retale, a location-based app and website that aggregates weekly retail circulars, created a real-time visualization of how Americans spend, from coffees sold at Starbucks to credit card transactions to sales of firearms. The count starts from the moment the webpage is opened — after a few minutes, you'll see sales of toys outpace firearms, though fall far behind lottery cards — among other interesting patterns.

The company's references are listed below the graphic. It says it was inspired by the popular "Internet in Real-Time" chart.

Snapshot after 299 seconds:

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