Reston, VA-based Wirthlin, an international research and consulting firm, conducted the survey for St. Louis, MO-based Fleishman, an international public relations firm.

The survey also focused on consumers expressing their emotions via their pocketbooks about French, German and Canadian products. Those three nation's bailed on war support and their products may suffer as a result.

Trade Winds found that half of all Americans have begun to look for alternatives to French, German and Canadian products. Many consumers are also willing to consider boycotting products of some nations, the survey said.

Perhaps even more telling is that consumers expect to feel this way for some time.

To determine how enduring consumer changes could be, the survey asked "How long do you think it will take for things to pretty much go back to normal?"

The survey found that 48 percent of those surveyed responded "two or three years or longer"; 44 percent said "a year or less" and 6 percent said things "will never go back to normal".

War fallout further documented

Trade Winds' credibility received a boost days before Fleishman and Wirthlin even released the report, when the more detailed University of Michigan's Index of Consumer Expectations, a closely watched component of the Index of Leading Economic Indicators, was found stuck at 69.6 in March, nearly identical to the 69.9 recorded in February 2003. The Expectations Index is 25 percent below the level it was a year ago, but the year-to-year decline came to a halt when the war began, according to Richard Curtin, director of the University of Michigan's Surveys of Consumers.

Another index also took a hit at the onset of war. The university's Index of Consumer Sentiment was 77.6 in the March 2003 survey, slightly below the 79.9 recorded in February 2003, but the size of the March decline was cut in half by the gains recorded since the war started.

"Although near-term prospects for the national economy were marginally more favorable by the end of March than in February, consumers' buying plans for homes and vehicles grew less positive throughout the month," Curtin said.

Home buying plans recorded the largest decline in March, and vehicle buying plans slumped at the end of the month. Rising uncertainty about future job and wages prompted the more cautious spending plans among consumers, he added.

Shelter from new Desert Storm?

The two studies give rise to another burning question: "Is consumers' initial reaction to war merely a knee-jerk wait-and-see attitude or something deeper?

Another report seems to answer with an indication that the war will have only a small impact on the housing market.

Geographic diversity and myriad loan programs available to borrowers should protect the mortgage market from severe damage, according to Fitch Ratings, a New York City-based international ratings firm for 1,600 financial institutions, 3,300 structured financings and 17,000 U.S. tax-exempt municipal bonds.

Fitch says while some borrowers will be sandbagged due to the war time economy, they represent a relatively small percentage of all borrowers, most of whom have a strong financial perimeter to protect them from any economic invasion.

Fitch also discounted discussions of a national real estate bubble and said only some local overheated markets could find prices suddenly deflating or popping like a bubble.

"The war would exacerbate such localized concerns if one region was subject to terrorism issues, or contained an extremely high percentage of active military personnel or experienced a particularly acute economic dislocation due to the war," the ratings firm offered.

However, Fitch's report, unlike quantifications found in Trade Winds' and the University of Michigan's reports, is more of a look at what could be ahead rather than a look at what just happened.