Worst Drop in Consumer Confidence in History
October experienced the worst drop in consumer confidence since the index was rated for the first time a new Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers poll said.
It said said its index of confidence plummeted to 57.5 in October from 70.3 in September,’ CNBC reported Friday.
“Consumer confidence in early October registered its largest monthly decline in the history of the surveys,” the report said.
“All of the prior double-digit declines were based on severe economic dislocations with the losses accelerated by fear and panic,” it went on to say.
When consumer confidence is low, it means that consumers will spend less, which will worsen and deepen an economic crisis. Instead of spending like they normally do, consumers decide to keep their money in their pockets, causing sales and eventually production to go down. This, in turn, means that more workers will lose their job, that consumers will have even less to spend, which will cause consumer confident to go down even further, and so on, until the situation is changed and people start getting their confidence back.
What many consumers need, I think, is for politicians to act as if they know what they are doing, and to remain calm. A lot of heated rhetoric has been used in the past few weeks, undoubtedly causing consumer confidence to drop even further than it would have if lawmakers and government officials would have used more careful words to express themselves, and to describe the situation.
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Low consumer confidence good for regime change.