Diane Swonk Consumer Quotations

More and more retailers are feeding on a smaller consumer pie, and many are going away hungry, ... What Wall Street Wants from the Retail Industry.

I think you have to take the January numbers with a bit of a grain of salt. Consumer confidence is still quite strong and I think we'll see at least a partial recovery in activity in February and through the spring.

The question is not whether the consumer is slowing. From the Fed's perspective, it's whether the consumer is slowing down fast enough to keep inflation in check,

When the economy goes back down again, years down the road, will consumer credit be a major problem, like it was in the 1990-91 recession? ... Yes, it could come back to haunt us. But right now, it's a macroeconomic plus.

This is a very unusual recession in that the consumer did not collapse and incomes are in the black,

It's hard to kill this darn consumer, isn't it? Anyone who is losing sleep over the consumer is losing sleep over the wrong thing.

The consumer is not about to die on us, but let's face it, it's time for them to give a little slack to the business sector.