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August Consumer Sentiment Declines To 63.2 From 66 In July

Tyler Durden's picture




 

It seems consumers are focusing on more than merely their 401(k) these days. Now it may be time for the administration to focus on jobs, wages, deflation, budget deficits, tax rates, burgeoning sovereign debt, sticky consumer debt, bankrupt states dispensing IOUs, wealth destruction and other items that actually impact the day to day lives of the US public.

 

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Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:06 | 36666 Mos
Mos's picture

Bah, what do consumers know?  It's not like they matter to the US economy....

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:13 | 36671 bpj
bpj's picture

I think people are realizing what a trillion is.

 

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:39 | 36697 Anonymous
Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:14 | 36672 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

The new billion is the trillion.

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:22 | 36680 MinnesotaNice
MinnesotaNice's picture

And what comes after a trillion... isn't that quadrillion... better get used to that one also... isn't trillion and quadrillion what we used to say when we were 7 years old and that we wanted to express an amount of money that could never possibly exist but make sure everyone the point that we meant the most money anyone had ever thought of...

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:26 | 36682 bpj
bpj's picture

Don't leave out a gazillion.

 

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 11:02 | 36734 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

It's free, only $1.

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 11:27 | 36759 OBRon
OBRon's picture

Timmy's new debt ceiling.  After all, if no one knows how big it is, how could govt spending ever exceed it?

Gibbs (at future pressie): "No worries - we're staying WELL below the new debt ceiling."

 

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 14:12 | 36800 nogeithner (not verified)
nogeithner's picture

U6 may actually be the high, but only based on higher workforce participation rates, not from birth-death assumptions.

His message was being spread and gaining even more support...therefore he needed to be censored.

Until we have guys like Black back as regulators nothing will change. We just

good articles; good articles 4 slow news day ..http://www..
hat tip: finance news & finance opinions

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:15 | 36673 bchbum
bchbum's picture

Maybe its the white house with their trillion dollar overhaul of the health care system, while hiding the details of the plan, that is making them nervous.

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:16 | 36674 MinnesotaNice
MinnesotaNice's picture

Whoops... consumer sentiment went in the opposite direction of analyst expectations... Rosenberg will be all over this... this has been his mantra... and I think he is very right.

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:16 | 36675 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Obama just shat his pants

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 11:01 | 36733 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

i wondered where his brain went.

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 11:29 | 36763 OBRon
OBRon's picture

How would you know?

Soros & Immelt haven't taken him out of the closet yet this morning.

Too busy dumping the rest of their shares.

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:17 | 36676 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

"Now it may be time for the administration to focus on jobs, wages, deflation, budget deficits, tax rates, burgeoning sovereign debt, sticky consumer debt, bankrupt states dispensing IOUs, wealth destruction and other items that actually impact the day to day lives of the US public."

Definitely the quote of the week!

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:21 | 36679 Sqworl
Sqworl's picture

This is plan D...looking for home in Cabo..

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:35 | 36694 djchill2
djchill2's picture

Hell ya...put that shit on a T-shirt!  I' ll buy a couple...as long as you are accepting dollars as payment that is.

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:48 | 36711 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

I've got it, how about an "OBAMA CARD"

It works just like a Visa or Mastercard

It has a 0.25% APR

It has a $10,000 USD credit limit

Every American Get's one

Nobody has to make any payments for 4 years
-or- until OBAMA is out of office.

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:51 | 36719 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

+1

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:21 | 36678 michigan independant
michigan independant's picture

Lagging indicator to decades of locust's farms. Debt serfs top to bottum. Gravity being asserted in economics lessons. Real problems and no discernable moral compass.     

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:26 | 36684 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Black Friday

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:45 | 36705 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

ECRI propaganda

US recovery could be steepest since 1980!

LOL

That guy with the t-shirt idea

Plan D... looking for a house in Cabo

is on to something

that's American entrepreneurism.

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:27 | 36686 Daedal
Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:30 | 36688 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

In order to create good new jobs, the USA will need some companies that can win in the arena of international trade.

I do not mean winning a la Boeing by putting factories all over the world. Good American jobs can only be created if U.S. factories win.

How this can possibly happen, I do not know. The deck is stacked against the U.S. worker by foreign mercantilists, by domestic parasites, and by the big NY banks with their internationalist agenda.

When the export businesses, such as manufacturing, fail, all the service jobs go down with them. In a factory town, when the factory closes, everything else closes too: banks, barbershops, retailers, law offices, doctors' offices, schools. All those great service economy jobs dead.

I can see no scenario where good jobs will be created in the U.S.

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:34 | 36692 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

the only way to protect american jobs is through
repudiation of nafta and other free trade drivel....

those were programs designed to export american
jobs overseas - it has worked spectacularly...

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:40 | 36699 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Seriously, that's why it's so comical to hear some pols froth at the mouth about cap-and-trade sending "millions" of jobs overseas.

Hello? Where they hell have they been for the past 20 years?
They didn't seem to concerned about it when companies funding their campaigns were doing it.

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:59 | 36730 chunkylover42
chunkylover42's picture

Economies advance and grow by creating new, better jobs, not by rehashing the same old ones.  We can put thousands of people to work in the energy industry by exploiting our own sources of oil and natural gas (my home state of Michigan has ENORMOUS reserves of natural gas, think they could use the jobs?).  We have a manufacturing infrastructure and a fairly well-educated and skilled workforce that should be developing high-tech machinery and solar panels, not frigging cars that Asian companies can do twice as good for half the cost.

Yet none of this happens because as much as politicians talk about "creating jobs" and "putting Americans to work", so few have any idea how to actually do it.  Instead, they cling to what has worked in the past, even though foreign companies are kicking our ass at it.

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 11:06 | 36739 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

politicians don't and can't create jobs....those
things are created through capital formation...
however, usa policies have destroyed capital...
major capital flight has been in motion for 3 decades
and has only accelerated over the last year.

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 14:44 | 37102 chunkylover42
chunkylover42's picture

You are correct that politicians don't and can't create jobs, but they have a huge influence on the capital formation via legislation that you mention.  I was perhaps a bit careless in the language, but my argument remains valid.

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:32 | 36689 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

"Now it may be time for the administration to focus on jobs, wages, deflation, budget deficits, tax rates, burgeoning sovereign debt, sticky consumer debt, bankrupt states dispensing IOUs, wealth destruction and other items that actually impact the day to day lives of the US public."

I think the administration is ultimately much more interested in this- but this has been the problem. It seems to me that the Obama attitude towards the financial crisis has been "ok, let's just paper over this nonsense and get on to other things". It is obvious he is much more interested in health care, energy policy and so on and so has handed the reins on the finance issue to a bunch of the Wall Street usual suspects. Unfortunately for him, the regulatory capture of these people are what led to the current financial mess in the first place.

So the US is freakin' stalled right now- the issues that actually matter are being blocked by an attempt to inflate another consumer binge/stock spec bubble. When you think about it, there is tons of business opportunity in the US- infrastructure is crumbling, energy policy is a disaster and crying for transformative investment. Heck, the country needs to be effectively rebuilt, and that would be more than a few jobs. Unfortunately, by going lazy on genuine financial reform, the administration is fostering the same sort of financialized paper economy that just hit a wall.

There is no way around it- for the States to hit restart, the financial sector has to take some real pain and downsize and stop making trades on itself.

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:34 | 36693 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

"It seems consumers are focusing on more than merely their 401(k) these days. " What 401K? I think most of them took them out and used it up or borrow against it already! Market rise has nothing to do with average joe six-pack!

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:39 | 36698 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

the market rise has been due to large scale
government intervention directly and through
proxies such as goldman sachs, jpm, morgan
stanley et al.

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:37 | 36695 . . .
. . .'s picture

It seems consumers are focusing on more than merely their 401(k) these days. Now it may be time for the administration to focus on jobs, wages, deflation, budget deficits, tax rates, burgeoning sovereign debt, sticky consumer debt, bankrupt states dispensing IOUs, wealth destruction and other items that actually impact the day to day lives of the US public.

---------

Most people don't have much net worth except in housing, so 401(k) value doesn't really impact their sentiment much.  Current and anticipated wages, social sec, medicare, are way more important.

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:42 | 36700 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

One day we will wake up to the DOW being 92,768. 1000% inflation and the bulls will be happy. ;)

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:43 | 36701 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

"WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. consumer sentiment index unexpectedly declined"

ROFL, unexpectedly..... joke of the century that.... and who didn't expect that the consumer is feeling pretty rotten right now? Jobless that have given up looking that don't count in the jobless numbers still haven't got a job even if they don't count and they don't spend either!
Fiddling the headline figures doesn't work with real people and real joblessness.
It is al pretend and hide your head in the sand

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 14:12 | 36798 nogeithner (not verified)
nogeithner's picture

His message was being spread and gaining even more support...therefore he needed to be censored.

Until we have guys like Black back as regulators nothing will change. We just

good articles; good articles 4 slow news day ..http://www..
hat tip: finance news & finance opinions

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:43 | 36702 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Time to front run shorts closing now and squeeze a few out

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:48 | 36712 mule65
mule65's picture

Bears are flushed out.  Bulls are fleeing today.  Dollar looking good.

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:45 | 36704 chunkylover42
chunkylover42's picture

I would argue they are already focused on wealth destruction by trying to ram job/wage killing cap-and-trade and health care bills and higher taxes through Congress.

 

 

 

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:45 | 36706 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

This is a bad, bad number. The performance of the stock market usually has an influence on consumer sentiment, so how bad must consumer sentiment be if the a huge run up in the stock market doesn't lift it? How bad would it of been if the stock market had gone down or was just flat?

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:47 | 36710 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

And they are trying to hold the market up as usual, in the old days this would have tanked 200 at least by now!

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:52 | 36720 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

perhaps they are just realizing that after the
spectacular pump dance that they are still down
30% from peak...

maybe some of them are realizing that there are
no earnings justifying the current price level...

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:53 | 36721 e1even1
e1even1's picture

"Now it may be time for the administration to focus on jobs, wages, ..."

i'm expecting a WPA type program. my grandfather said they called it "We piddle around". they'll just scheme up ways for 5 people to do 1 person's job. it fits this government's pattern of expanded deficits and a synthetic economy.

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:56 | 36724 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Maybe Joe Sixpack and Herby Homeowner are waking up to the fact that they have been thrown under the bus by the FED banking cartel and whores who work for their Wall Street pimps over in the District of Corruption.

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:57 | 36725 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Yes, use the tarp money to trade the market instead of giving it to the people, then the banksters pocket the profits for themselves

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 10:57 | 36726 Handle with care
Handle with care's picture

Consumers are obviously too dumb to understand the Trickle Down Theory.

 

With enormous bonuses back on Wall Street the rich are again getting much richer, and any day now they'll start to use that money to create good paying American jobs.  Any day now ...

 

As Obama continues, and indeed accelerates  the work done by Reagan and Bush in ensuring that the productive surplus of America is diverted into and retained by fewer and fewer hands America is on the verge of unprecedented prosperity.

 

If only the liberals and unions hadn't ruined the nation with their socialism, all the money could by now be in just one person's hands and that would make us all rich!  Somehow

 

Warren Buffet walks into a bar full of economists, they all immediately jump up and order the best champagne shouting, "We're all rich!"

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 11:01 | 36732 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

One would love to see the pitchbooks rham put together for his Perella payday - about says it all

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 11:04 | 36736 Neophiliac
Neophiliac's picture

JPMorgan's forecast for a v-shaped recovery looks very moronic in the face of these sentiment and CPI numbers.  They were even talking about "pent-up consumer demand".  Epic fail.

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 11:13 | 36745 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Probably just a lackey wheeled out that they can say was one of their juniors after the event and sack them, but use them to get out of their longs and go short!

Like the GS call on oil at the top saying it was going higher and also at the bottom saying it was going lower

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 11:05 | 36738 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

In many of these comments there seems to be an underlying assumption that Obama is continuing this drive to wealth destruction, state backed robbery, and the essential destruction of our representative democracy out of at best simple naivete and at worst an unintentional but relatively benign bias towards principles that are inconsistent with the execution of his oath of office.

How about a simpler explanation - Obama is achieving exactly what he wishes to achieve. The destruction we see around us will in due time keep most people so occupied with existential matters they will have no time or energy to fight the aggregated power of the group to which Obama belongs. The next presidential election will be, if held, a complete sham. Those who have the ability and connections will be relatively protected - Goldman Sachs, Friends of Obama, etc.

The rest of us will effectively be slaves.

Not a pretty thing to mull over as it requires some terrifying assumptions. However in the spirit of at least considering the possibility of a scenario we would like to think wildly improbable I'd say that the concept that things are going according to a plan cannot be summarily discarded as completely inconsistent with the environment.

Time will tell, as usual.

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 11:11 | 36744 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

mubrack hussein obama is a rockefeller tool....

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 11:17 | 36747 e1even1
e1even1's picture

agreed.

"The rest of us will effectively be slaves."

there's another alternative that isn't too popular here. make the best of it for yourself as an individual. lose the self righteous attitude and exploit the system whenever you can for as much as you can.

[ducking for cover]

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 11:31 | 36764 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

You go to jail like Madoff.
Unless you're connected, your plan will fail.

Now..if a large majority of Americans would refuse to pay their mortgages, credit card debts and taxes... the system would have to collapse, implode whatever.

5,000,000 Americans failing is too big to fail.

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 11:07 | 36741 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Shanghai index went down nearly 3% so their bubble is bursting, is this the start for the US? After all valuations are soooooo stretched here!

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 11:38 | 36781 AnonymousMonetarist
AnonymousMonetarist's picture

By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO

AP Retail Writer

Our customers are more disciplined in their spending," Mike Duke, Wal-Mart's president and chief executive, told investors during a prerecorded call Thursday. "There is a new normal now where people are saving more, consuming less and being more frugal and thoughtful in their purchases."

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, noted that its financially strained shoppers keep buying less-expensive store products and smaller sizes. Customers also are paying for more of their purchases in cash or with debit cards than with credit cards, said Tom Schoewe, Wal-Mart's CFO.

Kevin Mansell, president and Chief Executive of Kohl's, told The Associated Press that retailers should lower their expectations for holiday shopping.

"Last holiday was horrible, but our attitude is that last holiday is the new reality," said Mansell. If things go better this year, Kohl's can quickly adjust to increasing demand, he added.

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 14:12 | 36797 nogeithner (not verified)
nogeithner's picture

I don't agree with his one world government assertions, but those who believe ferret out important information that can be applied elsewhere and to different theories.

His message was being spread and gaining even more support...therefore he needed to be censored.

Until we have guys like Black back as regulators nothing will change. We just

good articles; good articles 4 slow news day ..http://www..
hat tip: finance news & finance opinions

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 11:47 | 36803 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

And consumer sentiment knocked back that much and the market is up 50% since?

Hmmm, maybe they are fed up seeing the market up that much knowing that all their taxpayers money is funding the banksters to trade the market and they are going to have to pay higher taxes if they are lucky enough to keep their job.
Seeing the banksters rake it in with high stock market that they aren't participating in much be really really upsetting.

Fri, 08/14/2009 - 14:01 | 37025 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Gold vs Dollar Devaluation + Bear market can't hold back

http://www.NumisEX.com/blog/1/2009/8/gold-vs-dollar-devaluation

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!