Consumer Confidence
Apr 18th, 2008 at 10:22 am by Susie
People now understand something very bad is happening. They already knew the economy sucked, despite what the media elites continued to tell them:
The public’s ratings of the national economy continue to sour, with assessments deteriorating faster than at any point in Washington Post-ABC News polling. Views on the Iraq war have also turned more negative, with six in 10 now rejecting the notion that the United States needs to win there to effectively battle terrorism.
The economy and the Iraq war are the top two issues on voters’ minds, according to the new Post-ABC poll, and worsening opinions of both may dampen GOP hopes for the November elections.
Nine in 10 Americans now give the economy a negative rating, with a majority saying it is in “poor” shape, the most to say so in more than 15 years. And the sense that things are bad has spread swiftly. The percentage who hold a negative view of the economy is up 33 points over the past year, and the percentage who rate the economy “poor” has increased 13 points in the past two months. That is the quickest 60-day decline since The Post and ABC started asking the question, in 1985.
That can’t be right. Papa Smurf Gibson says the top issues that concern Americans are whether the Democratic candidates will pick each other for a running mate and who wears what sort of jewelry on their collars. No, the economy and Iraq, those are distractions from the real campaign issues, this campaign is about guns and bitter, not guns and butter.
Gas is supposed to climb 23 cents a gallon in the next day or two here. That should pretty much wipe out any discretionary spending, which might include phones. Then they won’t be able to reach most people for comment, and things will be back to normal.