It Kind of Looks Like the American Consumer is Dead, Not Just Taking a Pause

American Consumer RIP Economic indicators are noisy, meaning that there’s a lot of movement from month to month.  There’s so much noisiness in economic indicators that it causes some market participants to downplay high frequency figures. Also see  Which President Wins? Looking at Some Politics Connected with Today’s American Labor Market Yesterday’s big figure – Retail Sales – could be one of those “just noise” figures.  Retail Sales collapsed in March from 3.7 percent year-over-year growth in February to just 1.7 percent. The decline, of course, begs the questions, is it just noise or is it a longer term signal? [drizzle]The…