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Smart Profits Report

What defines an American?

Apple pie?

Baseball?

That unbreakable spirit of optimism?

Christian principles?

Or maybe it’s shopping. Let’s face it: We were the ones who coined “shop ‘til you drop.” That phrase didn’t appear out of nowhere for nothing. And we’re also the ones who always have to have the biggest, the newest, the best.

With the exception of the last year, we’ve built our economy on and around the consumer mentality. And it wasn’t until we started cutting back on our spending that we really started to hurt. Yeah, sure, there was the banking crisis and the housing market mess, but those quickly merged into a “crisis of confidence,” which then led to people saving instead of spending, which led to… Well, you’re more than aware of the causes and affects by now, so moving on…

The new era of responsibility might be very short-lived though. Americans can only resist buying their toys for so long, and anybody who thought differently obviously doesn’t understand us. It’s like asking the Brits to give up their football (or behave decently at an international game), or the Japanese to give up their sushi.

It just ain’t gonna happen for long.

Sure enough, they just released data showing that consumer spending rose again in February, marking the second consecutive month in 2009 that Americans spent a bit more than before. Back in January, analysts attributed the uptick to post-holiday sales, but they can’t explain away February’s rise in sales. Sure, there was Valentine’s Day, but who celebrates that antiquated holiday these days anyway, right?

The Commerce Department report showed spending by individuals rose 1.0% in January and an additional 0.2% in February. It wasn’t a lot, but it’s still movement in the right direction. And additionally, personal savings declined by $27.4 billion across the country last month.

That might be a bad sign for the maturity of the average American, but it sure is a good sign for the economy.