consumers are pulling back

--Consumers spend more on housing, health care, education, travel, restaurants and other services -- $4.6 trillion last year -- than they do on food, gasoline, clothing, electronics, cars and other goods -- $3.6 trillion. Spending on services such as education and housing tends to be less sensitive to economic swings. But discretionary spending, such as elective medical procedures or airline tickets, is susceptible to cyclical pressures. --Besides rising mortgages delinquencies and home foreclosures, delinquencies in the auto-loan market are ticking up to the highest level in several years, and lenders are tightening terms. Student loans are weakening too. --Friday, Federal Reserve data suggested credit-card spending has slowed. Consumer credit increased at an annual rate of 2.3% in October, faster than September's 1.6%. But that was less than half the pace of earlier in the year, and the acceleration in the growth of credit-card debt offset a second month of declines in the category that includes auto loans. Credit-card issuers have been pulling back, with approval rates across the industry dropping to 33% from 41% a year ago, --The labor market has held up, a good sign since most Americans' incomes come from their jobs. But even here there are some signs of weakening. Initial claims for unemployment benefits are running at a four-week moving average of 340,000, the highest since October 2005. Fed policymakers' latest forecast shows the jobless rate rising to between 4.8% and 4.9% next year, and the outlook has darkened since those projections were made in late October.