Consumers Aren’t Confident
In the latest sign that America’s increasingly government-run (and government-bankrupted) economy is essentially “ka-put” for the foreseeable future, consumer confidence fell to its lowest level ever during the month of October.
According to numbers released this morning, this key economic indicator fell from 61.4 percent in September to just 38 percent – the lowest mark ever and a figure well below the 52 percent mark that analysts were predicting.
From Reuters:
The Conference Board said its index measuring consumer sentiment tumbled to 38.0 in October from an upwardly revised 61.4 in September. That was the lowest reading since the index began in 1967. The previous low was 43.2 in December 1974.
“The sharp drop in the consumer confidence index shows that consumers have been really battered, and this last month in particular really took a toll on consumers’ outlook,” said Terrin Griffiths, economist and industry analyst at California Credit Union League in Rancho Cucamonga, California.
“It shows that consumers are seeing the downturn as having a longer duration.”
Uhh … yeah.
And not to beat a dead “RINO donkey,” but why the hell did we just saddle American consumers with an extra $700 billion in bad debt ?
And why are some proposing that we saddle them with another $150 billion?
Oh that’s right … government had to “do something” …
Comments
By Web Smith on October 28th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
In a healthy economy, banks create loans from deposits made by the population.
This is significant in that it demonstrates that the population has the money to buy goods and services. Because goods and services are being purchased, banks are willing to loan businesses money.
When too much of the population’s money is taken to pay interest, less goods and services are purchased, businesses sell less, and banks are less willing to loan them money. Of, course, this downward spiral continues until the disaster becomes evident when the pain trickles up.
No amount of money thrown at the banks is going to fix this. The population has to recover first.
http://ewebsmith.com/Finance/hiddendemon.html