Friday, October 30, 2009

Consumers Prepare Early For a Blue Christmas

It is definitely not a good sign to see consumers caving in just as the stimulus effort is expiring:

Americans cut spending for the first time in five months and a gauge of confidence weakened, signaling consumers will make a limited contribution to the recovery without government incentives.



Here's our first inkling of a weak Christmas shopping season. I'm trying to avoid confirmation bias, but that's hard when I see stories like this one. It's even harder when federal lawmakers scramble to extend the first-time homebuyer tax credit.