Thrifty consumers

It’s 6 p.m. on a mild February Monday, and plenty of people are out in the Main-Taunus Zentrum, a retail mall just outside Frankfurt. But few of them are spending much money. “We’d really like some new bedroom furniture,” says Karin Beckmann, an industrial chemist who is eyeing wardrobes in the Karstadt department store. “But my husband’s worried about los­ing his job, so we probably won’t get any...