GROUND FLOOR: There are conflicting views on the likelihood of the tills ringing out for the holiday season in the US this year. It seems that many of the big retail stores are hiring as many seasonal workers as they did 12 months ago despite sentiment that sales will be lower.

Perhaps they feel that plenty of "sales advisors" ready to relieve you of your money before you have a chance to change your mind will shore up an otherwise challenging year. Whether you're a hiring or a firing retailer, though, might depend on which report you read last week.

According to American Express, consumers will increase their festive spending by about 5 per cent in the holiday season. No doubt these spenders have been influenced by the last Fed rate cut and have enthusiastically adopted the view that splashing a few greenbacks around will indeed get the economy out of the soft spot.

As far as the US is concerned right now, employment prospects are still uncertain and unemployment claims haven't yet begun to fall significantly. Nevertheless consumer spending is running at an annualised quarterly rate of around 4 per cent while personal income is growing at nearly 2 per cent.

But sentiment really is still weak though maybe the sight of decorated stores around the city will spark off that patriotic spending splurge that the authorities would so like to see.

If, however, the retailers were reading the Harris poll commissioned by Amazon.com, they'd be feeling a little less enthusiastic about their additional hirings. According to Harris, about 32 per cent of Americans expect to spend less on gifts this Christmas and 72 per cent said that they were looking for bargains.

Since Amazon don't need to hire sales advisers, having instead only to jazz up the home page and steer you in the direction of their own deeply discounted products, they may be trying to spook the retailers by this poll while attracting people to online shopping. But it's in the stores that matters.

My mailbox this week included the following exhortation from a US commentator for today, given that it's the day after Thanksgiving. "Do not come into the office. Do not stay at home. Get out and shop. Even if you do not spend, your presence in the stores helps. If the stores look mobbed it will give others confidence to spend."

What will make consumers spend? Well, the Nasdaq is up nearly 30 per cent since October and the Dow is up by 20 per cent. Perhaps some people will feel a bit richer as a result, although the truth is probably just that they'll feel less poor. But still, the idea of an increase in markets that have been so one-way for so long might bring a bit of cheer onto the streets in the weeks ahead.

***

It's hard to think that things will be very cheery in Japan, though, where government debt has been downgraded once again after another depressing economic forecast from the Bank of Japan. And yet the forecast - expecting the economy to remain flat - wasn't the worst news of all. There had been fears that it would contract further.

But it's particularly depressing to think that no growth is good news! The major problem continues to be the banks where there were further sharp falls in share prices. I've written before about the complex interlinking of banks owning shares in companies to which they lend (obviously the source of many of the banks' non-performing loans) and holding equity in other banks too.

Once again there's talk of possible nationalisation and the government has consistently talked about reform of the sector although it's only with the appointment of Mr Heizo Takenaka, the minister in charge of financial regulation, that prospects for reform seem to have loomed a little larger.

The banks need to provide properly on their balance sheets for bad debts and restructure themselves so that they are operating from a more solid base. But analysts have been talking for years about the state of the Japanese banking industry and so far there's been nothing constructive by way of reform at all.

Of course it's not only the banks - government debt continues to grow and there seems little enthusiasm to tackle it. The government agreed a new package of spending proposals last week but they're not going to help much.

Japan has been a basket case for so long now that it hardly seems to matter any more, but a Japan mired in the bog of zero growth does nothing to help the rest of the world.

Even if growth doesn't decline there's still no sign of an end to deflation in the economy and so the likelihood of an end-year splurge in spending is pretty limited.

***

Meanwhile back home, some of my friends in the retail sector have had a more difficult year than you might think.

Sure the shops were crowded but consumers are taking longer to make up their minds on the bigger ticket items and the proposed abolition of the First-Time Buyer's Grant has caused furniture and home stores bosses to grit their teeth.

According to one retailer, the squeeze has come in the jobs market too. Despite the onset of the spending season, he's trimmed the sales force over the last few months. There may be temporary hires over the year-end, but nothing permanent.

Last year, he told me, candidates were interviewing him for jobs. If they didn't like the company or the conditions, they took their services elsewhere. But this year it's been slightly different. People are more willing to take a job even if it's not their ideal.

Competition has hotted up for consumer money. But whether the Irish spender has turned into a bargain hunter or is ready to give it one last lash of the credit card still remains to be seen.