American household confidence dipped close to a historic low in October, as elevated prices stemming from the Iran war worsened the public’s economic outlook ahead of midterm elections.
The Consumer Sentiment Index from the University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers dropped to 48.0 this month, down from a final reading of 48.1 in September. Economists surveyed by Reuters had predicted the index would land at 46.3, which matched the preliminary figure previously reported for October.
The October output, released on Friday, represents the second-lowest reading ever recorded, sitting just above the all-time minimum of 44.8 registered in May, not long after the war with Iran began.
These findings correspond with political polling data showing that voters hold a negative opinion of the economy, as well as Donald Trump’s and the Republican Party’s handling of economic issues.
It’s probably even worse than donnie 1.0, when he did tariffs also and completely bobbled the pandemic.
Almost immediately, he started doing crazy shit like “liberation day” (the guy has an insanely stupid obsession with tariffs and really seems to believe it means “money is pouring in” to the country), tackling gardeners and carpenters and disappearing them, arresting foreign workers here to train Americans, causing a brain drain in universities and research like we have probably never seen before in this country, and then, on top of all that, starting a war with Iran to drive prices of diesel to be about $2/gal more vs. last year.
Regardless of the morality of the above (and it’s all terrible) it all has negative impacts for the economy. The shit he’s doing to research and science and education is going to be something that takes a very long to repair and it’s going to have a downward drag on our economic indicators for decades, most likely.
And all because a certain type of American is frightened about seeing shifts in demographics and in culture…