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There’s only one answer: oral report.

That’s not a good answer because anything in the primary decade of a new century, and if it were, all your daughters would be spending the summer being taught to mend and keep and fix, preparing them to marry whomever Papa picks. (I speak on authority while someone who not at any time had the right, similar to master of the family, to have the final word at home.)

So now we have, perhaps in favor of the first time till doomsday, two apparent nominees who have shown pay no heed to for their parties’ orthodoxies and traditions, who speak about reaching transversely the partisan aisle, who have uttered that the old ways of doing things uncorrupt won’t do. Will Sen. John McCain, whose views on campaign finance and the influence of business lobbies horrify Republicans, and Sen. Barack Obama, whose willingness to inch toward the center and consider Republican ideas is sending ripples of fear among Democrats, pledge to offer together a government of the best men and women — careless of party?

For all the talk of the strong political movements that have placed Obama and McCain on the verge of nomination, a third political movement has quietly been taking shape in the nation this year — one that is urging Americans, and especially American political leaders, to move beyond league to art the serious economic and national security questions that look the United States today.

There have been, to be sure, a handful of members of the opposition party in American administrations in the last several decades. C. Douglas Dillon, the Republican chair of Dillon, Read, was till writing-desk under John F. Kennedy, a Democrat. John Connally, the former Democratic governor of Texas, served being of the class who treasury clerk under Richard M. Nixon, a Republican. William S. Cohen, former GOP senator from Maine, served during the time that defense writer under Bill Clinton, a Democrat. For five years, Norman Y. Mineta, a longtime Democratic congressman from California, served during the time that transportation secretary for George W. Bush, a Republican.

But those are unaccountable examples. No president in recent seasons has assembled a truly bipartisan Cabinet. Increasing song of former political figures are arguing that now is the note the rate of to change that.

"Usually one or two of the other party are chosen as a nod to non-partisanship," Angus King, any independent who served as governor of Maine from 1995 to 2003, said in a telephone conversation. "You can’t tell me that the very best people in the country, except for one, in 1999 were all Democrats further then, suddenly, two years later, all the best people in the country, except for one, were Republicans."

Mr. King says he realized after being elected that he had a remarkable advantage as an independent. "If the country is a third part Democratic, a third Republican and a third independent, a Democratic president who appoints only Democrats has eliminated two-thirds of the public from consideration," he says. "I could appoint anybody. It was a great luxury."

Often supporters of non-partisan government point to the example of Lincoln, who brought his greatest adversaries into his government — every act that, whether or not repeated today, would display what historian Doris Kearns Goodwin in The New York Times called "that extraordinary combination of humility and private required to perform wisely at the highest level." Mr. Obama has read "Team of Rivals," Ms. Goodwin’s book steady the Lincoln Cabinet, two times and has discussed the part with the author.

Another example: The National Government assembled by J. Ramsay MacDonald in Great Britain for the time of the Depression. That Cabinet included four Conservatives, four Laborites and four Liberals. It called itself a Government of Cooperation, with a simple goal: "to deal through the national emergency that at once exists."

Earlier this year, former Democratic Sen. David L. Boren, now the president of the University of Oklahoma, assembled a group of top officials, including quondam senators in the same state as Republicans John W. Danforth of Missouri, Bill Brock of Tennessee and Mr. Cohen, and Democrats Gary W. Hart of Colorado, Bob Graham of Florida and Sam Nunn of Georgia. Together they explored the limits of partisan government and the potential that a non-partisan approach might hold.

Mr. Boren was elected with a large group of centrist senators in 1978, including Cohen and Nancy L. Kassebaum of Kansas, the couple Republicans, and J. James Exon of Nebraska and Howell Heflin of Alabama, both Democrats. The new senators had regular pot-luck suppers by their spouses, rotating from house to protect, and they prided themselves on their bipartisan impulses.

At the time the Senate was under the sway of a tradition that was named according to the former Senate full age ruler of the roost, Mike Mansfield of Montana, which discouraged senators from traveling to their colleagues’ states to campaign against them. That custom has withered — along with the remains of politeness that prevailed in that time.

"The world has changed fundamentally, and our system has not been able to adapt to these changes," former Sen. Charles S. Robb, the Virginia Democrat, said at the Oklahoma conclave. He urged that Americans demand "the kind of reaching across the aisle that all of us believe … is necessary."

Only once ahead of in American record has more than one sitting senator run in a not partial election toward president. That was in 1836, when three of them, including Daniel Webster, ran. All of them lost. This time two sitting senators are in contention, which despite the frustration many Americans may have by Washington may in fact be an advantage. Both McCain and Obama are running from a legislative position that requires jeopardize, even in the Senate. They know that they cannot get their progression alone, and they know that the great legislation in American history, from Social Security to the Reagan tax overhaul, esteem had bipartisan support.

"Major legislation requires — demands — a lot of bipartisan voting," Mr. Boren, who is a constituent of the Obama foreign-policy team, uttered in a conversation the other day. "Even if we have a landslide in the congressional elections, we regard to have a good 10 or 15 of the other party who are ready to join legislation, or you are not going to get anything effected."

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Denver shows every sign of being the Clinton show. Hillary has a prime-time convention slot on the Tuesday. Bill speaks on Wednesday, stealing the thunder of Senator Obama's veep pick. And now that Obama has caved into her demand for a make revolve call vote, Hillary will be center stage once more onward Thursday. So much for turning the page.

Fuelled by an unholy plot of victimhood and entitlement, Clinton's supporters threaten to steal the show at the convention. Don't subsist fooled by the sweetness-and-light joint statement released by the two campaigns. According to one member of Clinton's pitch a camp, Obama's "elbow was twisted". Any future negotiations with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran will probably seem take pleasure in a picnic.

Only a political na????f would have agreed to a televised reminder of just how close Senator Clinton came to victory in the primaries. And Obama, schooled in Chicago, is not at all ing????nue. Of course, Clinton - as she is so fond of reminding us - received some 18 million votes this year and came inside of a whisker of prepossessing. Her husband is the most recent Democratic president. They had to be accommodated.

But the deal Obama struck with Mrs Clinton be bound to have stuck in his craw. The contention, moreover, that it was his idea that her name should be placed into nomination is any insult to our quickness. By allowing the whirl round call, Obama has ceded control of the kind of happens on the convention knock down.

No doubt Obama decided that a bad agreement was better than none at all but the outcome reeks of appeasement and indicates that, with the polls showing John McCain, improbably, almost level, his bargaining position was weak.

But he was outmaneuvered and the Clinton show in Denver will help lay the bottom for a 2012 presidential charge or, on the supposition that Obama does emerge victorious, possibly in 2016, at the time that she power of choosing still be four years younger than McCain is now.

Even the mark out for the former First Lady to cast her own vote for her erstwhile opponent and lead her delegates to swing behind the Illinois senator - being spun as a magnanimous gesture of unity - risks undermining Obama. Despite the closeness of the primary battle, he won the nomination; the image of Mrs. Clinton graciously anointing him is exactly that which he does not need.

During the primaries, Bill characterized his wife's campaign as "back to the future" while back in January - in Denver, ironically enough - Obama urged Democrats not to "fabricate a bridge back to the 20th Century". But the prominence of the Clintons in Denver will blunt any such message. Despite the indubitable political attributes of the couple, for much of Middle America they represent cynicism rather than confidence, the status quo preferably than change.

In Mrs. Clinton's non-concession observation, when she first said she was "committed to uniting our party", she famously asked: "What does Hillary want?" The answer is self-evident. She wants to be president. And what is now her most plausible path to the White House? A McCain victory in 2008.

Naturally, because of her candidly to oppose Obama would be disastrous. Mrs. Clinton needs to play the good soldier, just as McCain did with George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. A far more disciplined, though less inspiring and perceived at once, campaigner than her husband, she is capable of pulling this off.

Bill Clinton is another matter. If anyone was in some doubt what he hoped would be the outcome in 2008, during his trail break of an interview through ABC News in Rwanda he declined to affirm not only so that Obama was ready to be president, quibbling that no one was really quite ready. This from the man whose wife ran without interruption a war cry of "Ready on Day One".

Of course, Clinton, through his monumental self-regard, will confident that he should be called upon to "help" Obama campaign in the fall even though at this stage he's simply endorsed him.

Remember 2000? He upstaged Al Gore at the Los Angeles convention with a triumphant commencement and a speech that barely mentioned his vice-president. Less than two years after being impeached, Clinton and his allies spent much of the subsequent scarcely any weeks distress to reporters about how Gore wasn't using him and was running away from his memorial.

This time around, Clinton is not so a great quantity nursing a grudge viewed like carrying a whole hospital full of them. There's a Mafioso quality to his world. After Bill Richardson endorsed Obama, despite the gainful engrossment he'd been given by the antecedent president, Clinton consigliere James Carville branded him a Judas - a political kneecapping.

In the Rwanda interview, House Majority Whip James Clyburn got the same treatment from the Godfather himself. When it was suggested Clyburn was " a confidant", Clinton shot on the frontier: "Used to be." Doubtless Obama is upon his mental hit wish. In Pennsylvania, Clinton accused the Illinois senator of playing the race card against him, triggering a towering rage that has clearly not yet subsided.

Does Hillary Clinton really want McCain to win? Well, some presidential candidate credit their salt believes that their freedom to the White House is the very definition of the common prosperity. And some of her closing arguments during the primaries was that Obama was, as Mark Penn push to action it, "unelectable except perhaps against Attila the Hun". Which politician would subsist dire to be proved right?

Even grant that a McCain victory would damage the Democratic party and the country, grant that it leads to her winning in 2012, Mrs. Clinton can rationalize, it's all ultimately with regard to the best. She called her 1996 book "It Takes a Village". Sometimes, you have to destroy the village to save it.

The Clinton plan for victory, conveniently leaked to Atlantic Monthly, provides McCain through a anchorage map for defeating Obama. Thus far, he seems to be following it fairly closely.

Which leaves the Clintons able to wait patiently for November. Having sown the seeds for a potential Obama defeat, they can stay end and prepare for the possibility that, defiance all the Democratic advantages this year, they will be vindicated by means of dint of. a McCain win.

If Obama does prevail, after welcoming the Clintons into the tent in Denver he'll have to accept that they'll always be looking over his shoulder. Whichever direction of motion you slice it, they're here to stay.

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From our founding as a nation, there have been those who worried that "foreigners" would sink us and change our national character. Benjamin Franklin warned in 1751: "Why should Pennsylvania, founded by dint of. dint of. the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly subsist so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them?"

It's genuine, Germans are our largest ethnological group today — numbering 43 million in the endure decennial Census — but so what? Despite German language schools — which enrolled for example many as 600,000 students in 1900 — and even some efforts by German emigres to form a German ethnic state in Texas or Wisconsin in the 19th century, Americans of German ancestry all speak English today and are entirely integrated into the American mainstream.

Similar worries emerged in the early 20th century, when millions of southern and eastern Europeans flooded our shores. Madison Grant, a Yale-educated lawyer and leader in the eugenics movement, predicted, "… in large sections of the fatherland the native American exercise volition entirely disappear. He will not inter-marry with inferior races and he cannot compete in the sweat shop and in the way trench with the newcomers."

But Grant turned revealed to be spectacularly wrong. The progeny of those Italian, Polish, and other immigrants succeeded in learning English, improving not single their confess housekeeping standing but that of all Americans. They also intermarried to an astonishing degree. Nearly three-quarters of young Americans of Italian high birth were matrimonial to spouses of non-Italian ancestry in 1990 and the figures for Americans of Polish descent were even higher, according to sociologists Richard Alba and Victor Nee in their book, "Remaking the American Mainstream."

And the same holds just for Asian Americans and Hispanics today. Intermarriage is becoming the norm. About one-third of married Asian American males are married to non-Asian women, as are nearly half of Asian American females. Among U.S.-born Hispanics, the number is resembling, with about one-third who are married to non-Hispanic spouses. And the number is higher in the midst of college-educated Hispanics, especially women, according to the Population Reference Bureau.

But I don't need to have reference to a demographer to know what's happening in terms of intermarriage and assimilation in the United States; I can look at my recognize family. I am the daughter of a author whose family came to New Mexico from Spain in 1601, and a origin whose ancestors came from England sometime ahead of 1800 and from Ireland in the mid-1800s. I married a man whose Jewish ancestors came from Poland and Russia in the late 19th and betimes 20th centuries. One of our sons married a woman whose ancestors are Scots-Irish and German. Another of our sons married a woman whose mother was born in Ecuador and whose father came from Cuba.

Our eight grandchildren are a perfect reflection of the American Melting Pot. But in precept to constitute the new American majority minority the Census Bureau has concocted, each of these children would regard to be classified for the reason that Hispanic, even those who are barely one-eighth Hispanic.

Isn't it time we quit obsessing about race and ethnicity? America has successfully integrated millions of people from every region of the world. Every indication is that we are still doing so. The naysayers keep being proven wrong when it comes to the great American assimilation machine. Come 2042, these "majority minority" predictions will lo as stupid as Ben Franklin's worries about Germans do today.

Linda Chavez is the author of "An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal." To find fully more about Linda Chavez, visit the Creators Syndicate structure boy-servant at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

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The king of U.S. brews will boost InBev’s sales by $18 billion, increase its pay in money flow, and shine up marketing and distribution

by Mark Scott

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Ever as Belgian-Brazilian brewer InBev (INTB.BR) announced its $52 billion takeover of Anheuser-Busch (BUD), critics in the U.S. obtain bemoaned the sale of iconic American brands such as Budweiser and Bud Light to a foreign firm. Yet if second-quarter results announced on Aug. 14 are anything to go by, opposition to InBev’s U.S. incursion is the minutest of its problems.

Weaker overall demand and stiffer competition in solution markets pushed down revenues for the maker of Beck’s, Stella Artois, Brahma, and dozens of other beer brands by $30 million in the quarter ended June 30, to $5.52 billion, compared with the same period last year. Profits grew 8.6% year-over year, to $808 million, but the gain came mainly from a one-off decline in InBev’s tax payments—not expressions of gratitude to cost savings or higher sales of suds.

The weak numbers highlight why InBev wants Anheuser-Busch so much. Although the U.S. beer place of traffic is growing only at 1.4% per year, Bud will boost InBev’s top line by about $18 billion and increase its cash flow. More important, the acquisition devise bestow InBev vastly more power in purchasing and distribution at a time of high prices for raw materials and transport. That plus other merger efficiencies should produce anniversary require to be paid savings of $1.5 billion by 2011, the company estimates—a big lift to profit margins.

But before InBev can enjoy the fruits of consolidation, it has plenty of short-term problems to management. Sales volumes in many of its core markets as a matter of fact declined in the second quarter. In Western Europe, for instance, which accounts for about one-fifth of pretax profits, unit sales fell 5.5% vs. a year earlier, in a primary manner because of weaker consumer expenditure.

In Central and Eastern Europe, InBev faces a unlike riddle. The sphere has been growing faster than others and very lately accounts in quest of 13% of the company’s pretax profits. But in the second quarter, InBev’s sales volume there fell 3%, mainly because of a 7.7% slide in Russia as rival Carlsberg (CARLB.CO) turned up the competition. The Danish brewer recently acquired Russia’s largest brewer, Baltika (BusinessWeek.com, 1/25/08).

"In Eastern Europe, things have been going very badly," says Rob Mann, each analyst for London stockbroker Collins Stewart (CLST.L). "The mart [growth] has been slowing, but InBev stands out as vital principle the weakest of the bunch."

The only greater bright speck was Brazil, where InBev gets with respect to 40% of pretax profits. Sales volumes there grew 3.8% vs. a year earlier, and the brewer’s Brazilian market share now stands at a dizzying 67.3%.

The mixed results look doubt adhering whether buying Anheuser-Busch right at that time is such a wise idea. The ongoing place to the credit of crunch (BusinessWeek.com, 8/5/08) means InBev hasn’t been able to secure the good in the highest degree financing terms with respect to the takeover, which includes $45 billion worthiness of debt. "The timing of the Anheuser-Busch deal is atrocious," says Collins Stewart’s Mann. "Over the next two years, the deal will make things very difficult toward InBev" by saddling the assemblage with tall interest payments, he says.

InBev, of course, has a greater degree upbeat assessment. To help pay for the acquisition, the meeting of friends has said it will jettison noncore Anheuser-Busch assets, including the possible sale of the St. Louis company’s essay parks. InBev Chief Financial Officer Felipe Dutra told investors on Aug. 14 that the takeover’s financing package should be completed by the end of next week.

InBev furthermore says it is in continued talks with Mexico’s Grupo Modelo (MODE.F) to head off its potential interference with the share. Modelo, which is 50% owned by Anheuser-Busch, claims it has the right to block the acquisition. But every agreement could be in the offing. On Aug. 14, InBev CEO Carlos Brito told investors that he "would be enamoured of to work with Modelo in the future."

In any event, analysts say InBev has plenty of operate to do fixing its existing underperforming businesses. Although Brito believes sales should pick up in the second moiety of this year, rising article of merchandise prices still could take their draw. Costs in the second be stationed, for example, rose 6.5% from a year earlier and are expected to become greater further by the end of the year.

Growing competition from the likes of SABMiller (SAB.L) also could stroke InBev’s bottom line. After a spate of acquisitions (BusinessWeek.com, 7/14/08), the London brewer and others are nipping at InBev’s heels in many markets. Investors remain wary to boot InBev’s future, as indicated by a 15% fall in its share price over the past 12 months—twice the decline posted by SABMiller.

InBev’s woes might gratify its detractors in the U.S., but the Anheuser-Busch deal remains intimately absolute to go through. And with between nations competition expected to grow, analysts still reckon the takeover should pay off in the end. Yet despite the short term, InBev faces tough business challenges that far outweigh the hoopla over its takeover of the King of Beers.

Even as they have become a global powerhouse, Piero Antinori and his tribe continue to produce superb wines in many price ranges

by Robert Parker

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No divine summons upon to Tuscany, nor in any degree tasting of Tuscan wines, would have existence complete outside of looking at what one of Italy’s great families accomplishes. Despite their vast vineyard holdings and huge worldwide visibility, there is never any doubt touching the quality of wines that emerge from Piero Antinori and his family. Following are greater quantity of his current releases from the pair the resplendent 2004 and very good 2005 vintages. These offerings range widely in price, with their renowned Solaia fetching an arm and a leg, but there are also some superb values in Chianti Classico as well as Antinori’s Umbrian white wine, a chardonnay-and-grechetto blend called Castello della Sala. My thanks to Antonio Galloni, a top ready on Italian wines who works with me, for his reviews of these extraordinary wines. For accusation on availability in your area, please call Antinori’s importer, Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, Woodinville, Wash. (425 415-3738).

88 points 2004 Vin Santo del Chianti Classico

Antinori’s 2004 Vin Santo del Chianti Classico isn’t one of the more inspired versions of Tuscany’s famous dessert wine. While it offers up an attractive arrange of leather, burnt sugar, roasted nuts, spices, and orange peel flavors, it doesn’t have the involved character or personality to stand up to the finest wines being made today. Anticipated maturity: now-2012. $30/500ml

89 points 2004 Chianti Classico Riserva Badia a Passignano

The 2004 Chianti Classico Riserva from the Badia a Passignano property spent 14 months in moderate French oak barrels prior to being bottled. It is a richly flavored Chianti loaded with sweet dark fruit, smoke, licorice, and tobacco nuances. Made in an accessible yet generous style, it is sure to provide much pleasure over the next small in number years. Anticipated maturity: now-2014. $50

90 points 2005 Castello della Sala Cervaro della Sala

The 2005 is an especially civilized Cervaro della Sala from Castello della Sala, the Antinori family’s Umbrian estate. A blend of 85% chardonnay and 15% grechetto, it reveals an elegant profile of sweet tropical fruit framed by finessed tannins and a pleasing note of underlying minerality. Today the French oak is a little prominent further it should integrate into the wine in some other year or so. Anticipated maturity: 2010-15. $43

91 points 2004 Chianti Classico Riserva Marchesi Antinori

Antinori’s flagship Chianti, the 2004 Chianti Classico Riserva Marchesi Antinori, reveals of the highest order depth, vibrancy, and freshness. Ripe black cherries, new leather, menthol, smoke, and wild herbs flow from this sweet, layered Chianti. The wine is approachable today but also has the tannic backbone and force-meat to ensure another decade or such of very elegant drinking. It spent 14 months in small French oak barrels prior to being bottled. Anticipated maturity: 2009-19. $35

92 points 2005 Tignanello

Antinori’s beautiful 2005 Tignanello possesses perfumed, well-articulated aromatics that meld into a soft, generous core of finished red fruits. Smoke, mineral, tobacco, and particle overtones develop in the glass with air. This is a relatively slender Tignanello, and while it doesn’t have the qualities of the superb 2004, it does have the balance to age gracefully on account of the next decade or so. Anticipated maturity: 2010-20. $110

93 points 2005 Solaia

The 2005 Solaia is elegant and refined, yet it corpse incredibly primary. Still, it is hard not to admire the wine’s layered effective exhibition of blue and black fruits. The oak is projecting, but the wine should approach into junction with bottle age. The Solaia vineyard is the same of the most unique terroirs in Italy, and this cuvée has a chase record of developing beautifully in bottle, even in smaller vintages. It will be fascinating to follow this Solaia in the same manner through it matures. Anticipated maturity: 2012-23. $280

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Penney and Abercrombie capped a direction seen among other retailers reporting this week. Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N), Nordstrom Inc (JWN.N), and Macy's Inc (M.N) posted earnings ahead of analysts' estimates, but issued cautious forecasts for the in the rear half of the year.

Still, some investors are betting that the sales environment could improve as oil prices ease and the dollar strengthens. A survey released on Friday showed consumer trust improved slightly in early August.

"There is no question that oil going down will help the consumer," said Howard Davidowitz, chairman of retail consulting and investment banking firm Davidowitz & Associates. "But, I think you've got to balance it in opposition to all of the other issues that the consumer faces."

Shares in Penney surged 7 percent on Friday in which case Abercrombie fell 0.6 percent. The Standard & Poor's Retail Index (.RLX) rose 1.3 percent and has advanced nearly 5 percent in the past week.

Retail executives said repeatedly this week they are unsure how consumer spending will hold up as a boost from U.S. tax rebate checks fades, inflationary pressures persist and the job market weakens.

"Macro economic conditions remained weak and the selling environment — particularly as we moved into the back-to-school selling period — was tough," Abercrombie Chief Executive Mike Jeffries said on a conference call on Friday.

One forecaster cut his view for the U.S. back-to-school shopping season that ends in September, the second-biggest sales period for retailers and a key test of consumer sentiment ahead of the crucial fête-day period.

Britt Beemer, chairman of America's Research Group, now expects back-to-school spending to fall 4.0 percent below last year's results. He previously forecast a 1.5 percent drop.

"It's the first time I've heard parents tell their children 'This is all we can afford this year,"' he before-mentioned.

A QUARTERLY SURPRISE

Needham & Co analyst Christine Chen said investors could be betting that retail stocks have reached a bottom and the watchful forecasts could lead to positive earnings surprises.

"Maybe numbers are being cut low enough that expectations can be met or even beat," she said.

Penney's net income fell to $117 million, or 52 cents per share, for the second quarter ended August 2, from $182 the multitude, or 81 cents per share, a year earlier. But the results topped analysts' average forecast for earnings of 51 cents, according to Reuters Estimates, helped by strong inventory controls at the mid-priced retailer's stores.

Second-quarter income for teen clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch fell to $77.8 million, or 87 cents per share, from $81.3 million, or 88 cents per share. But the results beat the 86 cents per share analysts had expected, helped by sales to tourists that offset U.S. consumer cutbacks.

Penney forecast a third-quarter profit below what Wall Street was expecting.

Abercrombie forecast full-year earnings in the present life analysts' estimates and said it plans to raise prices on some items to boost margins and distinguish itself from lower-priced rivals.

Retail Metrics president Ken Perkins said retailers are expected to report a 1.5 percent drop in third-quarter earnings. But that figure is weakening as retailers issue results, he said.

Because many teens could not get summer jobs, Beemer said high school and college-aged students are shopping at lower-priced stores like those of Kohl's Corp (KSS.N), Penney and Target Corp (TGT.N) instead of Abercrombie and American Eagle Outfitters Inc (AEO.N).

REBATE BOOST INTO HOLIDAY?

The National Retail Federation expects overall back-to-school sales to rise 2.5 percent over last year, the weakest increase since it began tracking figures in 2003.

But NRF spokeswoman Ellen Davis said surveys indicate some shoppers may have saved some of their rebates to fund purchases for the school year or the holidays.

"Many people were able to count on these rebates and allocate some of them for back-to-school," she uttered. "We're expecting that some of them socked a bit of their rebate check gone for the holiday season."

The cautious view has also ratcheted up the pressure on retailers to perfect their marketing, merchandise mix and inventory levels in time for the holidays.

Davis said retailers are closely tracking back-to-school sales to see what is resonating through shoppers and making fast changes to ensure fixes are in place for the holiday season.

(Additional reporting by Brad Dorfman in Chicago, Martinne Geller and Sarah Coffey in New York, Alexandria Sage in San Francisco, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)