Steve's barking the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning of American austerity?

Stop the presses, Macy's, Walmart, and even that new great innovative retailer Amazon had a down quarter( Amazon actually lost money).
Now I am personally sadden by this but I'm not surprised. If you'r taking money out of consumers pocket books a reasonable person can expect less spending by these very same consumers.
Now in case anyone doesn't follow what I'm writing about, the United States is going through what we call a Sequester. A Sequester is the US version of a European austerity budget.
Now if my mind isn't playing tricks on me the Sequester started about the same time as the beginning of this retail quarter. A logical person can make the assumption that some one who is furloughed losing a days pay once a month is going to have less money to spend ( or to save) cutting into buying power of the federal consumer (worker).
Will the counties top retailer persuade congress to end the Sequester?
Assuming that they can't persuade congress to end the Sequester will they start laying people off?
If these great retailers start laying off people wouldn't the President be blamed even though it's not his fault?
Would China, Japan, European Union head for an economic down turn?
If those counties have an economic down turn, wouldn't that hurt economically all of the Americas and Russia by curtailing much of their exports?  
Is the next great depression around the corner?  

The American consumers are paying down their dept,and that's being herald as a good thing by many.
I find it a scary thing, and it's a better indicator that consumer confidence is waning then any survey.
Could it be that an invisible hand is showing the federal workers to batten down the hatches for the stormy economic times ahead.

I'm looking for a deficit spike at the beginning of next year do to the spike in money being returned to the federal workers on their tax returns, and tax receipts  being lower do too fewer workers and lower profits.