Duh. ***Durable goods.*** Maybe what we are seeing is foreign workers (whether documented or not) shipping household goods back home while the price is right.

My old nabe in Manhattan (Inwood, just above Dyckman Street) was full of shops which specialised in shipping white goods (fridges, propane stoves, even whole gen-sets) back down to the Caribbean and Latin America. They used to do a rip-roaring business whenever the general economy was tanked. Thinking 1994-1997 most acutely, of course.

Anyway, a thought, worthy of the $0.00 you paid for it.