Friday the 13th of November, 2009 Consumer Confidence

Michigan Consumer Confidence data came out a minute ago and was 66.0 for October versus 70.8 for September. The Dow was up 45 points before the numbers were released and now up only 15. The August number was 65.7 and so we really have no gain in confidence by Consumers going into the holiday season. This is not good news for Retail Merchants.

The economy: Lest we forget how scared we were just a few months ago.

Yes, it hasn't been that long ago when we were having a run on banks and Lehman Bros. went bankrupt, AIG, the insurance giant, also faced failure and we all saw the sky falling. As a matter of fact it was Sept. 15th to be exact. But here we are this morning with a new President who wants to change the politics of the past and get a more bipartisan spirit going in the country and both Party's haven't gotten the message, as the House bill on the stimulus passed with not one single Republican vote. In addition, today the Michigan Consumer Confidence number for January came in at 61.2%, up from a December number of 60.1%. GDP for the 4th Quarter was down 3.8%, the biggest drop in over 25 years and the stock market doesn't know which way to go. It was up at the open about 35 points and now is down 55 points but it is anyone's guess where it is going to wind up today. So what's going on?

In my view, we aren't as afraid as we were back in September and October. Call it the Obama Effect or just fatigue, but there is less fear today than there has been. This is compounding President Obama's effort to get everyone behind the much needed stimulus and may be partially the reason why so many Wall Street Exec's got big bonuses which Obama is all upset about. Would they have dared do this if fear was the dominant emotion. Unfortunately greed returned. In order for president Obama to really get the country behind him in solidarity, there must be a higher degree of fear present than there is today. That means more pain may be needed for all of us.

It certainly would shut the Republicans up, as everyone would be clamoring for President Obama to act, just as they did with President Bush and former Treasury Secretary Paulson and even the Democrats led that fight in a bipartisan way. Again it was the Republicans complaining about Bush's actions and being idealogues rather than offering better suggestions than just let everything fail as that is the Free Enterprise market. If they had done that everything would have been lost and we would have been entering a worldwide Depression instead of a bad recession.