Where now for the US consumer?

Consumer spending in the US has picked up again, now that the worst of the recession is past. Despite repeated gloomy forecasts of their demise as the key driver of the economy, consumers have, more often than not, confounded those expectations. Nevertheless, this time it felt different, such was the agglomeration of negatives facing the consumer.  But recent data, while not exactly showing that the consumer is on a spending spree, does show that he is alive and spending. The recession has had a brutal impact on employment levels, with a reported 8.4 million job losses. But even that ...