The dual personality of American consumers enables them to tell surveyers their confidence is near recession levels while they rush off to the stores and malls, credit cards in hand.

Analysts see it as remarkable that most people haven’t stopped spending, despite worries about warfare and global turmoil. Despite such inconsistent behavior, it is consumers who have kept the economy from tumbling off a cliff.

Yet dubious analysts note that debts continue to rise, generating fears that buyers may yet become tapped out.

That brings us to Wednesday’s report on April retail sales. Chicago economist Brian Wesbury is looking for it to show a nice gain of 0.6 percent, on top of the 2.1 percent surge in March.

“The consumer and economy are in better shape than many analysts have been telling us,” said Wesbury, of Griffin, Kubik, Stephens & Thompson, an investment firm.

Car sales drove last month’s overall figures higher, he said, as growing volumes of SUVs rode to the rescue of the auto industry.

Elsewhere, a late Easter kept Americans spending, as better weather and a quick resolution of the conflict in Iraq pulled people away from their TV sets.

“About the only number that went down last month was sales of gasoline, but that was because prices dropped dramatically,” Wesbury said.

Looking ahead, he says many uncertainties, including war and terrorism, have abated. The only major one remaining: Will Americans get a tax cut?

Wesbury expects that to be pushed through Congress shortly, meaning, “for a variety of reasons, the second half of this year will see a solid economic rebound.”

One area where consumers seem to never grow weary of buying is housing, where sales have boomed month after month. Get ready for a modest pullback, however, in Friday’s report on April housing starts. Economist Sung Won Sohn expects slight slippage, to an annual rate of 1.7 million, after activity soared to an annual rate of 1.78 million units in March.

“That’s still a very strong number, because, perhaps surprisingly, mortgage rates haven’t gone up,” said Sohn, of Wells Fargo & Co. in Minneapolis. He said that in late winter many economists were predicting rates would creep higher. Such dire warnings helped set off a buying rush among some consumers.

Instead, rates have gone lower, and they may continue to do so, Sohn said. “We could even see another boom in refinancings,” he added.

In the meantime, there is a shift under way toward multifamily housing, Sohn said, because builders complain that land around big cities is becoming so scarce, they must focus on townhouses and condos to maintain affordability.

If the cost of just about everything is rising – including postage stamps, insurance, home heating, transportation, property taxes and services of all types – why is the Federal Reserve worried about deflation?

Members of the central bank said last week they are, indeed, worried about a broad-based price decline. Economists interpreting the Fed’s comments cited Japan, where an absence of corporate pricing power is seen as a reason for that country’s 13-year economic standstill.

Get ready for more talk about deflation in Thursday’s report on the April producer price index, followed on Friday by the month’s consumer price index. Both reports could show a slight drop, on the order of 0.1 to 0.5 percent, but most of the decline will stem from the backup in motor fuel.

The spring rally in the stock market vaulted prices higher by about 15 percent, using Iraq as a trampoline.

Unfortunately, the leap ran out of altitude after the Dow Jones industrial average had surpassed 8500 for only four sessions. At the end of last week, prices were flipflopping.

With blue chips still more than 25 percent below their record high in early 2000, the question is whether prices can be sustained. More importantly, there are doubts about whether the Dow can break through 9000.

Recent rallies, described as baby bulls, have exhausted their room to run around that level.