During this entire 'recovery', the consumer confidence figures have been in the 'recessionary' camp. That probably reflects the fact, that for many Americans there has really been no recovery at all. This morning's U-M consumer confidence really took a turn for the worse plunging to 54.9 vs expectations of 63.0. I assume some of this had to do with the political dysfunction in D.C. over the debt ceiling issue, but its truly an awful figure. To put the figure in perspective, the lowest reading during the Great Recession was 55.3 in November 08.
"The CSI tanked 13.8% from July's score of 63.7, and that score itself was a double digit decline from the month prior--10.9%."
Two-thirds of all consumers reported that the economy had recently worsened, and just one-in-five anticipated any gains during the year ahead.
Bad times in the economy were expected by 75 percent of all consumers in early August, just below the all-time peak of 82 percent in 1980.
"Never before in the history of the surveys have so many consumers spontaneously mentioned negative aspects of the government's role," survey director Richard Curtin said in a statement.
