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U.S. shopper: from muscleman to weakling
Americans shoppers have not only been the driving force behind the U.S. economy. They are also a kind of international public good.
The $10 trillion of U.S. consumption is not just 70 percent of the U.S. economy. It is around 16 percent of the global economy.
In short, American mall-junkies are hard to replace. So today’s reminder of the fragility of the consumer — courtesy of July’s retail sales figures — is not just bad news for the United States [nN13227479].
Through most of the past decade U.S. consumers resembled Arnold Schwarzenegger’s unstoppable robot in the Terminator movies. They seemed capable of taking blows that would have floored lesser consumers. Shoppers powered through business downturns, stock market collapses and even the 9/11 attacks.
The European browser elections and other tech news links
Microsoft says the best way to resolve its dispute with European Union competition regulators may be an election. The software giant spelled out late on Friday Brussels time plans for an election-style ballot to decide the question of which browser consumers use in Windows.
The forthcoming Windows 7 operating system would offer a “ballot screen” that lets consumers turn off Microsoft’s own Internet Explorer (IE) and instead use rival browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari Google Chrome or Opera Software.
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The Wall
