Americans spent at a brisk pace in August, defying economists’ expectations for a contraction in U.S. retail sales, though much of the spending was online as the spread of the Delta variant may have kept people from heading out to shop in greater numbers. Retail and food services sales rose 0.7 percent in August after falling by 1.8 percent in July, according to an advance estimate from the Census Bureau (pdf). Consensus forecasts cited by FXStreet predicted a 0.8 percent drop in the retail sales number. “Retail sales have more or less been treading water since March. Still, this month-over-month plateau represents a big jump from last year. August 2021 sales, for instance, were up 15.1 percent from August 2020,” said Bankrate senior industry analyst Ted Rossman, in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times. “Consumers have continued to spend robustly even after the stimulus sugar-high has worn off. That’s a good …