Consumers vote with their wallets

The retail sales numbers for September contain some very bad news for anyone hoping that Monday's stock market rally signalled an end to the uncertainty over where the economy is headed. A 1.2 percent drop may not sound like that all that much, but it was the worst performance in three years, and when you look at a chart of retail sales performance over the last year, the downward trendline is… » Full Story on Salon.com