America's Frugal Christmas

The early reports on Christmas shopping are in, and the news is as brutal as we'd feared: The Great Recession is making Americans frugal. Retail store traffic fell 24 percent on the last weekend before Christmas Day, making for the worst holiday shopping season in four decades. Sales were off 5.3 percent, according to the Chicago-based research firm ShopperTrak RCT Corp., despite jaw-dropping discounts of 70 percent at such heavy hitters as Macy's and Saks. “The week after Christmas is going to be more crucial for retailers than ever,” a spokesman for the National Retail Federation told Bloomberg. “The Friday after Christmas, with the discounts we’re hearing about, is going to be like another Black Friday.”