The American consumer, after carrying the globe on his or her shoulders for years, may be starting to display modest evidence of fatigue. And (horrors!) a few dollars may even by sneaking into savings.

The latest data on incomes and spending offer evidence that, while paychecks have been growing, not all of the increase is ending up with retailers. Not even a steep drop in gasoline prices has boosted revenues for merchants as much as they had hoped.

Should consumers slow their buying, especially for the holidays, workers in many lands would be hurt. But don’t look for signs of any spending slowdown in Thursday’s report on the September trade deficit.

It will show sizable improvement from August, when the trade gap hit a record of nearly $70 billion, says economist Lynn Reaser. She expects a decline to around $66 billion.

“The shortfall in August may have been a high point, thanks to a dramatic drop in oil prices,” said Reaser, of Bank of America’s investment strategies group in Boston.

Looking forward, exports are growing because economies are making nice headway in Asia, Europe and Latin American, she said. Meanwhile, companies here are slowing their rate of inventory expansion, crimping imports.

“Looking ahead, the decline in the price of oil should mean better news on the trade front in the months ahead,” Reaser added.

A drop in joblessness to a level not seen in about five years and a report that labor costs are rising at a 5.3 percent annual rate had some economists in recent days declaring that the Federal Reserve must raise interest rates further. Most analysts were hoping the central bank might reverse course and lower rates early next year.

According to Professor Peter Morici, the Fed “is on the horns of a dilemma. Inflation remains stubbornly high, and growth has slipped to the point of threatening recession.”

The wage gains, while impressive, have largely been confined to “workers with key technical skills, for example, in commercial construction, finance, information technology and health care,” according to Morici, of the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland.

Because workers in basic jobs aren’t sharing much of the wealth, Morici believes the Fed will be extremely cautious about pushing rates higher.

The stock market’s vaunted ability to peer into the future has investors beginning to look at profit prospects for 2007.

One of those who doesn’t like what he sees is mutual fund manager Henry Van der Eb, of the Gamco Mathers Fund in Bannockburn.

He says he expects stocks to be hurt by “weak consumer discretionary spending and the unwinding of the residential real estate and mortgage credit bubbles.”

In Van der Eb’s view, those problems will trigger an economic downturn next year, prompting corporate profits to tumble.

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(c) 2006, Chicago Tribune.

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AP-NY-11-03-06 1935EST