Merrill Lynch North American economist David Rosenberg said U.S. consumers are starting to rein in their spending. "We are detecting early signs that a new pattern of spending behavior is taking hold in the aftermath of the housing, credit and oil shocks; it is called frugality. The trend towards essentials and away from discretionary," Rosenberg wrote in a note to clients. Rosenberg noted that air travel fell by 20% in the second quarter, while mass transit jumped 30.7% and spending on cars and SUVs fell 18.5%. Bicycle sales rose 4.4%.

"This is definitely showing some level of spending activity on the part of the consumer following the fiscal stimulus bounce," Maxwell Clarke, chief U.S. economist at IDEAGlobal, told Bloomberg News. "The impact of the stimulus has put our problems off for tomorrow."

Originally posted by sos37
Anyone notice that the price of oil this morning was down to $115 a barrel and the dollar had grown in strength?

Typically when the dollar rises, oil falls, but I believe oil is also dropping because we as Americans have changed our spending habits, as echoed here:

Merrill Lynch North American economist David Rosenberg said U.S. consumers are starting to rein in their spending. "We are detecting early signs that a new pattern of spending behavior is taking hold in the aftermath of the housing, credit and oil shocks; it is called frugality. The trend towards essentials and away from discretionary," Rosenberg wrote in a note to clients. Rosenberg noted that air travel fell by 20% in the second quarter, while mass transit jumped 30.7% and spending on cars and SUVs fell 18.5%. Bicycle sales rose 4.4%.

There are other signs of economic growth happening also:

Consumer credit rose by $14.3 billion in June, indicating that there is definately some spending going on.

Hmmm. Maybe Bush knew what he was doing with the whole stimulus package after all, huh, despite all the poo-pooing from Democrats in Congress!