Who was president 9 years ago? And who was the VP?
Consumer expectations fall to 9-year low as inflation weighs on Americans
The Conference Board’s latest reading on consumer confidence showed consumer expectations in June fell to their lowest level since 2013.
The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index for June fell to 98.7 from 103.2 in May, below expectations for a reading of 100.
The report’s expectations index, which is based on consumers’ short-term outlook for income growth, the job market, and overall business conditions, fell to 66.4, its lowest reading since March 2013.
“Consumers’ grimmer outlook was driven by increasing concerns about inflation, in particular rising gas and food prices,” said Lynn Franco, senior director of economic indicators at The Conference Board. “Expectations have now fallen well below a reading of 80, suggesting weaker growth in the second half of 2022 as well as growing risk of recession by year-end.”
The Conference Board’s report follows consumer sentiment data from the University of Michigan released last week that fell to a record low of 50.2.
Expectations went way down during the recession at the end of the Bush admin, rebounded a bit during Obama’s years, with some bumps here and there, a small dip at the beginning of the Trump admin, then went up and stayed rather high. Initially, it stayed up as Biden took office after COVID, and has been nosediving since near the end of 2021. Can Biden control everything? No. Again, the initial blame for the economic conditions goes to China, with an assist from Fauci and the NIH for funding the Wuhan Institute to do gain of function research on coronaviruses. However, Biden and his admin are not engaged in what’s going on. They seem to be finding out what’s going on when the news publishes stories, then say “oh, we knew about this months ago”, yet, did nothing. Offered no help. They aren’t working to get ahead of the curve. They wait till the ships are stacked up in the California ports, the baby formula is missing from the shelf. The gas prices are sky high.
And they project zero confidence. Only a diehard Brandon supporter will say they have confidence in him and his administration. There’s no policies that help being offered. The few they’ve gotten passed haven’t helped, and, have made inflation worse. What’s happening with the “infrastructure” bill? Look it up, there’s no news, really, of its impacts? What’s being constructed? What roads are being repaired?
On Tuesday, The Conference Board said purchasing plans for large items like homes, cars, and appliances had held “relatively steady,” though this data has cooled since the start of the year.
“Looking ahead over the next six months, consumer spending and economic growth are likely to continue facing strong headwinds from further inflation and rate hikes,” Franco said.
And limited product availability. I’ll say that Biden has no responsibility himself for the dearth of autos: China’s fault, with the shutting down of all the production and mining facilities. We saw the issues of computer chips, and, there was only so much Biden could do. How about fast tracking the mining and production in the U.S.?
We need more of this… along with more billions to Ukraine.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/825k-american-rescue-plan-funds-oral-historians-researching-anti-racism-latinx
#LetsGoBrandon
#RedNovember
Bwaha! Lolgf
Economics reported Heather Long, now with The Washington Post but then with CNN reported that even though the unemployment rate was just 5.0% — this was September of 2016 — people felt it was closer to 9 or 10%. I pointed out at the time that the feelings people had were pretty close to the U-6 unemployment rate rather than the official U-3 figure. U-6 included ‘discouraged’ workers, people who’d given up actively looking, and those who were stuck in part-time jobs because they couldn’t find full-time positions.
The same thing is happening here. The official unemployment rate is low, but part of that is because so many people have dropped out of the workforce, because they’re scared fecesless by COVID-19, and because various welfare programs have allowed them to live without working.
Now, it’s inflation, and it doesn’t matter what the actual statistics are, people feel inflation, almost in their bones. Vacation season is upon us, but people are worried that they just won’t be able to afford it, or will be way, way, way behind the eight-ball if they do take a vacation.
Our host has noted that new cars are scarce, but with inflation I suspect that new car buyers are scarce as well, as people don’t believe that they can afford one. And there’s enough talk about recession that people will be more uneasy, even if they aren’t particularly economically literate.