Trying to gauge the economies strength during holiday shopping season is not really indicative of much of anything. People are going to spend this time of year whether they have the money or not.
In regard to the housing market, right now it's ridiculous as the average home is something like $390,000. I don't care who you are, most 20-30 somethings are not earning enough to buy a house at this cost. I think I heard that the average starter house in the 90's was something like 1,400 square feet and today is 2,400 square feet which is a pretty big factor because new home builders want to build larger homes (larger profits, duh).
And most people that own homes today are going to be very reluctant to put theirs on the market as something like 95% of mortgage holders have interest rates below the current 7ish% 30 year.
Fewer homes on the market, larger homes being built, yeah that's going to price a lot of people out of the market without a doubt.
In regard to the economy as a whole, I'm certainly not smart enough to see where it is now, where it is heading, but one thing that is crystal clear to me is that the split of the "haves" and "have nots" is getting larger and larger by the year.
62% of households live paycheck to paycheck
45million households are on food stamps (or their equivalent)
I see the split waging everywhere. At my workplace, with my children, with my social network. There are plenty of people that are living very well, and reaping the raging stock market returns of the past year or two. But I know of plenty of people making decent money that cannot afford a $1,000 car repair, let alone trying to buy a home if they are currently renting and trying to figure out how to come up with a $2,000 -$3,000/month mortgage payment.
I don't necessarily see the U.S. economy in a bad spot, and I don't think a deep or prolonged recession is imminent, but I think this split I've mentioned above is going to have far reaching affects in the U.S. and that takes me aback a bit.