Newsweek has an interesting piece on Walmart Managers measuring the recession depth....

That gives Wal-Mart managers like Sprague a unique opportunity. For her, peering into shopping carts is like reading economic tea leaves, yielding anecdotal measures of consumer confidence and a front-line view of precisely how consumers are reining in expenses. Wal-Mart managers are often the first people to sense a recession is coming because they'll notice an increase in items discarded near cash registers, a signal that anxious shoppers are reconsidering purchases. In her store, Sprague has seen another barometer of spending discipline: an increase in the number of shoppers carrying grocery lists, many of which get dropped along the aisles. "Yesterday I picked up four of them," she says while walking toward the meat department.

READ IT ALL AT : http://www.newsweek.com/id/195663/page/1