While the federal government continues to spend gobs of money it doesn’t have on stuff we don’t need, Americans who are feeling the ill effects of all that overspending are beginning to pull back and squirrel more of their money away.
As evidence of that, U.S. consumer credit plunged by a record $21.6 billion in July – or nearly five times the decline economists predicted.
Consumer credit has fallen for six consecutive months, the first time that’s happened since 1991.
What does that mean?
Well, it means that consumers are focused on making ends meet right now and aren’t likely to stimulate the economy anytime soon with a flood of new purchases.
Total consumer credit now stands at $2.47 trillion, which is obviously a drop in the bucket compared to the government’s $13 trillion (and climbing) debt.
WEB EXTRA
By James the Foot Soldier September 12, 2009 at 10:27 am
This newfound era of responsibility coupled with state and municipal governments across the land slashing their budgets and making “mid-year” (don’t get me started) budget cuts more than offsets obama’s “stimulus/porkulous”.
Just wait for the real fun to begin when all that federal stimulus money is halved from state budgets in next year’s budget cycle.