Rich consumer feeling the pinch?

It's not just the poor consumers cutting spending.  Now it's the rich consumers cutting spending. 

People have been burnt so many times about consumers in America, it would be foolish to count them out.  But everyday, we get more and more evidence the spending is slowing. 

With shrinking stock portfolios, falling property values and smaller bonuses (unless you work at Goldman), it is effecting the rich consumer. 

High-end sales growth dropped to 3.3 percent from 10 percent earlier this year. 

The biggest surprise was from Nordstrom which reported a 2.4 percent decline. 

With housing prices going lower, the continuing credit crunch, if the affluent consumer spending slows down, it could get pretty ugly out there.

``Upper-income consumers are the bellwether,'' says Joseph Brusuelas, chief U.S. economist at IDEAglobal Inc., a Singapore- based research firm that advises central banks. ``When they begin to capitulate, that's when we all head down.''

That comes after five years in which the net worth of U.S. households ballooned by $19 trillion to $58 trillion, with most of the increase coming from financial assets, according to Federal Reserve figures.  

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aS8qyeqQhtXk&refer=home