A Black Friday With Red Showing

Last Friday, the post-Thanksgiving shopping day also known as Black Friday, was being closely watched to see if the American consumer was back in the shopping game. While, overall, the number of shoppers was greater than last year, the preliminary numbers show that people spent 8% less, and that's a problem (Click to See Full Story: "UPDATE 4-US shoppers spent less over Black Friday weekend").

Consumer spending has to be strong to bring the country back out of recession. 70 percent of all sales activity comes from the consumer. That spending creates jobs. It creates jobs at the retail outlets and for the manufacturers and suppliers of the goods that they are buying.

As long as people are concerned about the economy, taxes, losing value in their homes, and, possibly losing their jobs, they're not going to participate in spending. That's something that our politicians don't seem to understand. On Thursday, Obama has his jobs summit. Hopefully, he will hear a chorus of voices saying that very same thing. But, my guess is that those voices will fall on his deaf ears because this President will never stop or even take a breather in his quest to push job killing plans for higher taxes, Cap and Trade, and health care reform.