Remember the times when the US consumer used to splash out on borrowed money? The entire US economy depended on that. The US consumer pulled up the world economy too. The confidence was pretty high among the US buyers. Since then, the confidence has been dented and the engine of the US economy has been running low.

But in the last few readings the sentiment has picked up. The numbers released today show that the sentiment jumped to 104.1 points from 99 expected. That's a huge jump and it is the highest reading since 2007, even before the 2008 global crisis. All the components were impressing as well.

Just looking at these numbers you can assume that the US economy is at the best shape ever. But we know how far from that the US economy is. The confidence doesn't seem to translate to higher sales because the retail sales posted some crappy numbers a couple of weeks ago.

So, what's with all that confidence and no action? Have the Yankees turned into a bunch of dreamers, with shallow pockets? Or are they waiting for the right time to start treating themselves? I hope the second assumption is true, but surely the US consumer is not the same nearly a decade later.