Where Has Consumer Confidence Gone?
from the down-the-toilet dept
An interesting look at some potential reasons why consumer confidence has suddenly crashed through the floor. The idea is that there is a multiplier effect of bad news driving consumer confidence lower, which makes them spend less, which makes for more bad numbers, which creates a real recession (almost entirely out of perception!). The other concept is that consumer expectations were so out of line over the past few years, that they were forced to come down, decreasing consumer confidence eventually. I tend to think there’s more weight to the first idea. The media has been portraying a lot of these layoffs in a light that is much worse than they really seem.
