US Consumer Confidence Sinks to Record Low

[DuaneBidoux]

Source: AP via CNBC

Consumer confidence fell to an all-time low as worries about jobs, energy bills and home foreclosures darkened people's feelings about the country's economic health and their own financial well-being.

According to the RBC Cash Index, confidence tumbled to a mark of 56.3 in early January. That compares with a reading of 65.9 in December -- and a benchmark of 100 -- and was the worst since the index began in 2002.


Read more: http://www.cnbc.com/id/22605631

---

Another indication that there may be a very serious storm on the horizon.

[onehandle]

1. It's low with me. We're curbing our spending to essentials only.

Planning a yard sale in the spring. Selling stuff on eBay.

Which reminds me...

If you bid on one of my eBay auctions... Plan To Pay When You Win!

dammit.

[Roland99]

4. I'm paying down debt as fast as I can.

[earth mom]

9. Everybody's on Ebay selling stuff right now.

It's the only way to make ends meet for a lot of people these days.

[butterfly77]

27. Do you know somewhere else to sell things besides ebay...

[earth mom]

34. Try your local Craigslist or Etsy.

http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites.html

http://www.etsy.com/

Hope this helps! :hi:

[kineneb]

22. spending curbed: fixed income

spending...spending... oh, you mean paying for groceries, utilities and the house payment... and less groceries, at that.

I am hanging on to my stuff... will now never be able to replace it.

[Hersheygirl]

28. At the rate things are going

You might not have a house to put that stuff in.

[kineneb]

30. house almost paid off

mortgage much cheaper than any rent (~$300 incl. property tax), can manage that unless things get really, really ugly, at which point dollars will be worthless anyway.

...will pry from cold, dead fingers...refuse to move again.

[girl gone mad]

35. you have a good point.

At our current rate of inflation, stuff may be a better bet than cash, unless you need the cash to put food on the table, that is.

[dbt]

2. Storm on the horizon?

No, it's already here. And the Corporate Media wonders how much to "tell" us, sooner or later.

:argh:

[formercia]

6. The big boys are trying to cash in

We're the last ones to know. Why do you think they wanted to privatize Social Security? It was so they could dump their stocks and worthless sub-prime paper on John Q. Public and let us take the hit.

This has been coming for a long time.

Look up the historical M3 money supply and you will see that starting in 1996, the M3 started to go through the roof. A lot of cheap money fueled this scam and now it's time to pay the piper.

[greyghost]

11. Exactly....

Of course the corporate owned MSM has been sitting on this for quite some time. The Bush White House is doing everything in it's power in an attempt to forestall the inevitable for their own benefit.

Recession hell. we maybe seeing the next Great Depression.

[formercia]

12. Forestalling the inevitable

A Democratic President who will be blamed because the crash will occur after Junior leaves office.

As soon as Junior walks away from it, the boys will pull the cash feeding tube from the economy.

We're wise to that game.

[greyghost]

18. That's exactly what they're...

hoping for.

However, at the rate it's failing they may not succeed.

[formercia]

24. If only the War had worked out as planned

People wouldn't have begun to get pissed off so early in the game. Now, everyone is watching.

The question is: How many cockroaches can we get before they all run and hide?

[Oak2004]

31. Even if they do get out before the "official" crash, who will believe them?

Americans (at least 70% of us) know what we've got in Bush, and we know that Lt. AWOL has flown this economy into a tailspin. None of us are fooled anymore. If the economy crashes shortly after a Democrat grabs the stick to try to regain control, how many of us will really believe that it's all the fault of the Democrat?

I mean, other than the 30% lunatic fringe that thinks Bush has a halo and walks on water and put the economy into a dive in order to perform, for us unbelievers, The Miracle of The Loaves and The Hedge Funds?

[greyghost]

33. The 30%'s will be only ones left believing. eom

[workinclasszero]

25. Bush = Hoover

Recession hell. we maybe seeing the next Great Depression.

I fear you may be right.

Lets start up more wars across the globe and print soon to be worthless dollars to pay for them.:sarcasm:

Bush just might complete his destruction of the middle-class before its all over.:scared:

[greyghost]

32. LOL My wife and I...

have been comparing him to Hoover for months.:toast:

[workinclasszero]

36. I'm not ready...

...to check into a Bushville yet though. Unfortunately its still Jr's playtime.:scared:

I hope the dems can rescue the country!

[girl gone mad]

3. Off to the Greatest page with you.

While we're all watching the horse races, this country is coming apart at the seams and an arrogant sociopath is still in charge.

[bdamomma]

16. hold on its going to be a real bumpy ride for everyone.

recession is here, the dollar is worth shit.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

5. Holy sh**. 56.3? K & R.

:scared: MKJ

[Highway61]

7. No Shit

All because of greed and "stuff"

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

[LynnTheDem]

8. FACT: this is what happens when republics are president.

FACT: The economy grows faster under Democrats than Republicans. What grows faster under Republicans is debt.

Under Republican presidents since 1960, the federal deficit has averaged $131 billion a year. Under Democrats, that figure is $30 billion. In an average Republican year, the deficit has grown by $36 billion. In the average Democratic year it has shrunk by $25 billion. The national debt has gone up more than $200 billion a year under Republican presidents and less than $100 billion a year under Democrats.

Democratic presidents have a better record on inflation (averaging 3.13 percent compared with 3.89 percent for Republicans) and on unemployment (5.33 percent versus 6.38 percent). Unemployment went down in the average Democratic year, up in the average Republican one
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20059-2005Apr1.html

http://www.princeton.edu/~bartels/income.pdf

FACT: The biggest deficits occurred under Republican administrations.

The budget has been balanced five times, and always under Democratic presidents.



Republicans vote against their own best interests.

That's pretty dumb.

[mistertrickster]

19. Great links, LynnDem. Those are keepers. Thanks for that! nt

[DuaneBidoux]

37. Here's the deal: the COUNTRY does better under dems. BUSINESS does better under republicans.

If you look at the totality of the picture it is true that businesses and the few who own them do better with Republicans--and in this hyper-capitalist society in which we live the message of the "idolatry of the market" is all we hear (and don't misunderstand me, I think capitalism is awesome, but NOTHING is awesome if one force is worshiped and all others are obliterated). But the country as a whole does much better under Dems, at least in the history we can measure accurately.

[gristy]

10. This is personally unsurprising to me

I've got my health, a good job, and some money in the bank. Yet I worry every day about my economic future - to the extent that my purchasing is significantly affected.

[Paula Sims]

13. You ain't seen nuthin' yet!

I pray I'm wrong but we could be looking at these days as the "good old days". We need change NOW.

[greyghost]

14. That's very, very true. eom

[reggie the dog]

15. wow

What a great time to run on a leftist platform promising to reconstruct the welfare state.

[mistertrickster]

17. Heh, yeah. Anybody check their year end portfolio lately?

The S & P is DOWN for the year 3.3 percent. The NASDAQ is flat and still ONE-HALF of its value during the Clinton terms, and the Dow is up but only an anemic 2 percent.

The Dow went from 12,500 to over 14,000 but finished the year just about where it started. So if you or your fund manager bought into the Dow last summer when it was at an all-time high, you took a nice bath on those funds (15 percent loss).

That means we all get to work a couple of more years before we can retire thanks to

WORST.
PRESIDENT.
EVER.

[greyghost]

20. AMEN eom

[kestrel91316]

21. Way to go, Bushie!!!! Another Mission Accomplished(TM).

[windoe]

23. Dollar will be worthless,

energy will cost a fortune. I envision a bartering 'Ebay' business where people trade goods & services online instead of paying with money. A barter economy could get us through, with the right networking. (Trying to think positive).
We will all need each other during these hard times. Good luck to everyone.

[workinclasszero]

26. Time to hunker down?

When the economic s*itstorm really hits I hope that history will record that it was the party of the rich, the party of Wall Street and the so-called free traders and war-mongers that brought America to its knees.

I hope the Republican party will be totally destroyed or at least in the political wilderness for the next 50 years or so.

Of course we may be a colony of China by then and none of this will matter. :cry:

[ThePowerofWill]

29. Things are good for me, looking up actually.

Sadly our uptick in business comes at the expense of other folks misery. Storms, fires, and floods make my company money. We make insulator for cable, and electrical wiring. So when bad things happen like the above mentioned our business picks up. We had been seeing a slump due to the housing bubble, and so few new homes, and residential areas springing up. Then we had the fires in Cali, and now the ice, and snow storms. Kinda makes me feel guilty to profit off others misfortunes.

On an economic note, i'm a cheap bastard. So i will be saving all extra money as usual.

[workinclasszero]

38. Don't worry..be happy..

After 8 years of total Rethuglican control of the country, we should be living in a capitalist paradise by now.:eyes:

Oh yeah...thats what this is eh??

See ya out in the fields my fellow surfs.:yoiks: