By Jeff Reeves, InvestorPlace.com

The consumer front hasn't seen many encouraging signs in the past year or so. The big issues remain unresolved: Unemployment is persistently high, housing markets remain battered, and there's a general fear of more hard times to come.

Most investors have become immune to a lot of these major trends, adjusting their expectations to a "new normal" in which the benchmark is significantly less impressive than in previous years. However, just because you've set the bar lower doesn't mean consumers will easily jump over it. A host of disturbing headlines about consumers have cropped up recently, and they could foretell that a rather bleak holiday shopping season.

Wages and income are still flat. For starters, it's worth admitting the news hasn't all been bad on the spending front. Take the recent GDP report's somewhat cheerful details, thanks to consumers. However, the most important trend here isn't a brief and modest uptick in spending but the utter lack of increase in any real wealth for consumers.

Consider that disposable income ticked up a mere 0.1% in September, according to the Commerce Department, even though spending increased 0.6% to generate a bit of economic growth. That trend is simply unsustainable.

Separately, real hourly wages fell 0.1% in September from August. In short, consumers aren't making any more money. They may have spent more last month than in previous periods, but unless they also start bringing home bigger paychecks don't expect more spending growth.

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Retailers are seeing little organic growth. Generally speaking, retail stocks haven't had a very impressive year, and it's logical to assume that trend will continue in the fourth quarter as well. Specialty retailer Gap Inc. (GPS) is tracking less than a 1% increase in revenue for this fiscal year and looking at a mere 2.5% increase in fiscal 2013, according to Wall Street estimates.

Department store leader Macy's (M) is forecast for a meager 5% gain in fiscal 2012 revenue growth and 3% in fiscal 2013. Discounter Walmart (WMT) is projected to see revenue growth of 5% in fiscal 2012 and 5% again in 2013. The list goes on, and it's rather uninspiring.

Big-ticket TVs aren't selling. If you want to get the pulse of consumer electronics, just look at Japanese stocks. Companies catapulted to dominance on the strength of  spending in the U.S. are now suffering big headaches — especially from the king of American home appliances, the TV.

Take Sony (SNE), which is projected to post yet another huge loss in its TV division. On Monday, Panasonic (PC) also announced ugly numbers, thanks to its money-losing TV business. In response, its Viera branded sets will see some consolidation.

The reason is that demand is weak, and margins are squeezed razor-thin as manufacturers court shoppers with low prices. People may be giving plenty of gifts this holiday season, but judging from this trend in TVs, they won't be giving many pricey electronics items.

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Seasonal hiring is flat. As projected in an earlier column that took an in-depth look at the lack of seasonal hiring, it appears that the holidays aren't going to be kind to temporary workers. FedEx (FDX) and its 20,000 jobs notwithstanding, seasonal job gains in the retail sector will be flat at best, according to consulting firm Challenger Gray & Christmas — and possibly even lower than the 627,600 holiday positions added last year.

Some say this is an effort to juice profits by doing more sales with less staff. However, anyone who has visited a crowded retail store during the holidays knows full well that a lack of adequate staffing can hurt a store by driving customers away or missing sales that could help increase margins.

The economy, stupid. Even if these data points weren't staring us in the face, it remains crystal clear that economic and political uncertainty in the U.S. — as well as in the euro zone (Greece) and in the Middle East ("Arab Spring") — aren't going away. It simply is irrational to expect that shoppers are going to ignore the volatility on Wall Street, the battered housing market, the lack of new jobs and the caustic political environment in Washington.

Christmas might be the time of year when people try to be more generous and focus on what's really important in life. But it's a little naïve to think that mere holiday cheer can erase the doubt and uncertainty that is so pervasive this winter.

Jeff Reeves is the editor of InvestorPlace.com. Write him at editor@investorplace​.com, follow him on Twitter via @JeffReevesIP and become a fan of InvestorPlace on Facebook. As of this writing, he did not own a position in any of the aforementioned stocks.

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