Consumer confidence hits two-year high

[ProSense]

Consumer confidence hits two-year high

One of the main arguments in David Brooks's column this morning was that "in times like these, deficit spending to pump up the economy doesn’t make consumers feel more confident; it makes them feel more insecure because they see a political system out of control." But Ryan Avent points out that the new consumer confidence numbers came out today, and "confidence among U.S. consumers rose in June to the highest level in more than two years."

Now, it may be that the deficit itself scares people even as the deficit-driven economic recovery is making them confident. But that just goes to the question of whether you'd prefer to have people worried about a deficit that's actually not a major problem or an unnecessarily deep recession that actually is a major problem.

[Cant trust em]

1. Too bad that didn't result in an increase in retail sales in May.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/business/economy/12econ.html

So many indicators are showing opposite signals.

[ProSense]

2. Here are some key points

from the NYT article:

The biggest decline was in building material, gardening equipment and supplies dealers, whose sales fell a larger-than-expected 9.3 percent over the previous month.

<...>

Purchases of building materials may have also been relatively high in March and April because people were completing repairs on their houses after an unusually stormy winter, Mr. Shepherdson said.

<...>

One bright spot was sales from nonstore retailers, a category that includes online purchases. These sales rose a healthy 2 percent in May, and were up 15.6 percent from the same period the previous year.

There were also modest gains in sales by furniture stores, grocery stores, and health and personal care stores among others. Clothing stores, however, saw consumer purchases decline by 1.3 percent in April, after a decline of 0.7 percent in April.

[Cant trust em]

4. Right. Like I said...mixed signals. nt

[DJ13]

3. Stop that!

Its a new Golden Age, cant you see that?!

:rofl:

[Cant trust em]

5. I'm in the middle of the new prosperity vs. no recovery debate.

Clearly, unemployment is still in the mid 9s, so we have a long way to go. But we are adding jobs every month, which is a helluva lot better than where we were 6-12 months ago.

I almost never post on these kinds of threads since there is no real conclusion that I can draw.

[DJ13]

6. My problem with the happy talk is that its just that, happy talk

Theres little effort being made to bring a sustainable recovery so far by the government outside of doing everything they can to prop up the stock market and releasing dubious data to help them in that effort.

Theres no attempt to bring manufacturing back from overseas, theres no real stimulus directed towards the average person, and there wont be any in the future because Obama has decided that the deficit is of greater importance in the midst of the deepest recession weve had since the 1930's.

Nothing will improve until we set aside the demands of a rapacious investor class (the same wonderful people responsible for this crisis in the first place...) and really concentrate on creating good jobs and increasing wages.

Everything else is just noise by the self interests of either the investor class or a government that seems to believe serving the investor class is their sole reason for being.

[ProSense]

7. Reporting that consumer confidence has hit a two-year high is not "happy talk"

The news isn't obligated to only report bad or bleak news. When there are positive signs, they need to be reported and acknowledged. That doesn't mean it's great news and everything is back to normal. It simply means that there are positive signs.

[DJ13]

8. Its happy talk since theres no evidence its true

Consumer spending declined by 1.2% at the same time those same consumers were feeling more confident?

This isnt a right vs left, Obama vs his detractors issue, its a matter of actually needing real improvements in the interests of all Americans instead of bullshit.

[ProSense]

9. So the consumer spending information is true but the confidence indicators are false?

There could be any number of reasons why sales are off:

The biggest decline was in building material, gardening equipment and supplies dealers, whose sales fell a larger-than-expected 9.3 percent over the previous month.

<...>

Purchases of building materials may have also been relatively high in March and April because people were completing repairs on their houses after an unusually stormy winter, Mr. Shepherdson said.

<...>

One bright spot was sales from nonstore retailers, a category that includes online purchases. These sales rose a healthy 2 percent in May, and were up 15.6 percent from the same period the previous year.

There were also modest gains in sales by furniture stores, grocery stores, and health and personal care stores among others. Clothing stores, however, saw consumer purchases decline by 1.3 percent in April, after a decline of 0.7 percent in April.

It's at best a mixed report, showing positive signs in many areas.

[DJ13]

11. It's at best a mixed report

Look, I want a return to a good economy, but outside of Wall Street there are few signs of any recovery.

Unfortunately this admin suffers from the same stock market centric view that both Bush and Clinton operated under, and thats the wrong focus in a recession derived from a lack of consumer spending.

Thats like knowing the foundation of your house is eroding and trying to fix it by putting money into a new roof.

Trickle down doesnt work.

[Peacetrain]

10. Well with people feeling better about their ability to pay off their bills.. only makes sense

:hi:

[Peacetrain]

12. Self Delete