For the past year and a half, the consumer has defied a recession and Sept. 11 and kept spending at a healthy pace.

This was an honest-to-goodness better-than-expected report. There were no special factors in it that made it look artificially strong. The report also indicates that consumer fatigue may not be as severe as we had previously thought.

I see the trade gap stabilizing, but it's hard to see it narrowing unless you get the U.S. consumer shutting down.

This is what the Federal Reserve has been warning about for a long time -- we will still see consumer spending growth, but it will be more moderate than before, ... It's a retrenchment of consumer spending growth from blistering levels.

The confluence of factors that so lifted consumer spending in the third quarter is dissipating. Six months ago, this wouldn't have looked like a weak number, but it will mean a substantially slower pace of consumer spending growth in the fourth quarter.