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Strong evidence is emerging that consumer spending, a bulwark against
recession over the last year even as energy prices surged and the
housing market sputtered, has begun to slow sharply at every level of
the American economy, from the working class to the wealthy.

The abrupt pullback raises the possibility that the country may be
experiencing a rare decline in personal consumption, not just a slower
rate of growth. Such a decline would be the first since 1991, and it
would almost certainly push the entire economy into a recession in the
middle of an election year.

  <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/business/14spend.html?ref=us>