ABC Consumer Comfort Index Plunges To Year Lows On Surging Gas Prices

[Pale Blue Dot]

Once again the ABC Consumer Comfort index indicates that it is leaps and bounds more relevant than the ADP Private Payroll number. With increasingly less relevant confidence indicators out of UMichigan and the Conference Board, which lately only seem to "poll" 20 people with a $1MM+ Schwab trading account, it is worth noting what a true polling index says about the economy. And it isn't pretty: "Soaring gasoline prices slammed consumer sentiment into reverse this week, threatening the slow recovery in economic views that’s been under way. With gas now at record high for a February in Energy Department data back to 1990, the weekly Consumer Comfort Index dropped by an unusually steep 5 points to -46 on its scale of -100 to +100. It’s dropped that far only 36 times in more than 1,300 weeks of ongoing polling since late 1985; this shift erases an equally unusual 5-point gain in early January...After reaching -40 Jan. 9, the CCI is now at its low for the year, and its lowest since Nov. 21. It averaged -46 in 2010 and -48 in 2009; those compare with a lifetime average of -14 and a best-year +29 in 2000. Its single best week was +38 in January 2000; its worst, -54 in December 2008 and again in January 2009." So strange: unlike with stocks, where inflation is somehow supposed to raise confidence, inflation for the people somehow leads to a near record plunge in confidence. But who are we to believe in this centrally planned economy when every single data point is now fit to be discarded as nothing more than evidence of propaganda.



http://www.zerohedge.com/article/abc-consumer-comfort-index-plunges-year-lows-surging-gas-prices

I'm sorry if injecting more reality into the situation ruins anyone's day. It's just: How can we solve the problems of this country if we aren't even being honest about what the problems are?

[RandomThoughts]

1. No shit, someone needs to send the beer and travel money that is due to me.

Blinded by the Light by Manfred Mann's Earth Band
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg8cDmi7-U8

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. The lowest since late November ,eh? I'm ... bored by this

What do you think this does or doesn't tell us about the reality of problems?

[DJ13]

3. K&R

Well, I tried to rec it.