Contrary to ongoing attempts by the administration to refocus the public's attention on such focal points as guns, an imminent external cybersecurity threat (until it was revealed that the biggest cyber terrorist is the NSA itself), and climate change, the three still remain, pardon the pan, at the cold end of the spectrum when it comes to what issues most concern the US public. On the other end, for one decade and counting, the "top priority" for the US public was and continues to be "the economy", stupid.
And since "the stock market" did not have its own separate category, we can only assume that to most American leaders, the economy and stocks continue to be interchangeable, even though as we have shown over the past 5 years, the broader public - also known as the 'retail' investor - has largely shied away from the stock market entirely either because of the realization that it is a rigged casino benefiting a choice group of Wall Street (neither admitted nor denied) criminals, or simply because as the middle class expires, ever fewer Americans have the disposable income to wager on 1,000x forward P/E gambling chips, promises of untold riches by the Fed chair(wo)man notwithstanding.
Some more from Third Way [5]which broke down the numbers sourced from Pew:
Headlines and breaking news may drive news cycles, but according to Pew Research Center polling, the public’s #1 “top priority" has remained steadfast over the past nine years: “Strengthening the U.S. Economy.” Proving that James Carville’s blunt admonishment is as true today as it was back in 1992.
To illustrate how other top public priorities have shifted, we’ve created a heat map of 2013 priorities, which you can use to track the public mindset through three presidential elections and the wave midterms of 2010.
The heatmap is shown below. However, since the poll did not account for either Dancing with the Stars, X-Factor, reality TV, or Sunday Night Football, we would take anything shown below with a substantial grain of salt.
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