I believe that the key to this economy, is the retail shopper. Consumer sending, after all, in a normal year, represents over 2/3rds of the business activity in the nation.

But this year you can feel a decided cooling in the normally hottest time of the year for sales: This Holiday Shopping time.

Friday traditionally began the big consumer shopping spree, with Black Friday. As I understood the term, it was the time of the year, when stores and shops could rely on a major influx of buyers to make their income statements profitable. In other words to put them in the “Black.”