Bill Cheney Consumer Quotations

The retail sales number is perhaps more important than it would look at first sight. Since we're coming so close to the Christmas shopping season when most of the retail sales of the year happen, anything that represents a gauge of consumer sentiment and consumer buying patterns is going to be latched onto by the retail industry as an important indicator.

Granted, it feels bad, but that's mainly because we had it so good. In reality, we still have positive growth, low unemployment (even if it rising), and low inflation. Maybe that's why consumer confidence is holding up.

This is consistent with the view that the U.S. economy really is on the road to recovery. Consumers are not pulling back. Consumer spending is going to get us into a second half 2001 rebound.

What worries me the most is a slip backward becoming a spiral downward. Jobs are the linchpin of both consumer confidence and consumer spending. We can't sustain many more losses like this without that downward spiral getting started. This is the kind of data that could make the Fed think about easing again.

With the U.S. slowdown looking more real each day, the trade deficit may have passed its peak. The slowdown hadn't hit full force yet in October. U.S. consumers are still sucking in massive amounts of imports. The slowdown will be more clearly seen in November and December's figures. If imported goods start to pile up on retailers' shelves this holiday season, imports could drop off fast.

With the tide turning on job growth, consumer sentiment going into the holidays is far better than last year, even if it's not quite happy days are here again.

It's reassuring. It is true that the consumer is the only part of the economy that's keeping the expansion going right now.

I don't really see this as down; it's really flat. We're still at a level well above the post-Sept. 11 low; and so long as it doesn't trend downward, I'm comfortable with the idea that consumer spending is going to hang in there.

All the evidence on consumer confidence would tell us that all spending on big-ticket items is liable to plummet in the next month or two.

Now we're starting to see that wash out, and we're seeing that the labor market really has been gradually strengthening for most of the first half of this year. And this is fundamentally good news for consumers and for the health of the recovery going forward.