A friend of mine who sells consumer electronics stuff says this 4th quarter for him has been a lot stronger than it was a year ago.
I don’t know how healthy retail will be this Christmas, but my guess is that it will be stronger than last year. This time last year, the collapse was still new. Now that we’re just sort of muddling along, this is the new normal, at least for now. I don’t know if confidence itself is much higher, but at least the average consumer probably is not panicked or freaked out as they were a year ago.
BTW, I do think it’s sad that the consumerist orgy that is Christmas drives our economy to any measurable degree, but that’s another topic for another time.
