Consumer Spending Falls In September, Biggest Drop In Nine Months

[AllentownJake]

WASHINGTON — Consumer spending plunged in September by the largest amount in nine months, reflecting the end of the government's Cash for Clunkers auto sales program. Incomes, the fuel for future spending, were flat.

While the government reported that the overall economy grew in the July-September period, signaling the end of the worst recession in seven decades, the weakness in spending and incomes as the quarter ended underscores the fragility of the recovery.

On Wall Street, investors pulled back and stocks erased all the previous day's big gains. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped about 235 points in afternoon trading, and broader indexes also plunged. The biggest declines were among banks, energy and materials companies.



Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/30/consumer-spending-falls-i_n_339823.html

[anonymous171]

1. We need more jobs. nt

[Nay]

2. This is getting tiresome. Until people have INCOMES, there will be NO

recovery. How anyone expects anything different is a mystery to me.

[AllentownJake]

3. Economic text books tell them

that jobs are a lagging indicator.

That theory was written about a manufacturing society not a consumer society.

[Arctic Dave]

6. +1

And since we have moved most of our jobs overseas, it makes this theory even more irrelevant.

[AllentownJake]

7. It is hard to argue with status quo economic assumptions

It is something that was true, but is no longer true.

[Nay]

8. I know that jobs are a lagging indicator--but to put ppl to work, other

ppl need to BUY. And that's not going to happen anytime soon.

[xchrom]

4. i work in furniture retail -- and we've seen a drop off

the last two months.

from the previous three or four -- right now things feel more like a year ag.

EXCEPT -- i know people are buying homes -- but unlike the past -- they don't seem to be running to put furniture into them.

very interesting.

[MUAD_DIB]

10. Maybe they are getting it second hand.

[xchrom]

11. maybe -- if that's the case i wouldn't know. nt

[RagAss]

5. A pitiful Christmas season is on the way too.

[AllentownJake]

9. Followed by retailer bankruptcy's in January

and a commercial real estate crisis in the spring.

[Karmadillo]

12. Thank heavens for the unrecs. These are facts we must pretend don't exist.

nt