On Oct 10, 2007, at 5:03 PM, Julio Huato wrote:
> I just plotted data from pollingreport.com on the question:
>
> "Right now, do you think that economic conditions in the country as a
> whole are getting better or getting worse?"
>
> http://pollingreport.com/consumer2.htm
>
> from 1/31/1997 to 9/14/2007. That includes four of the fabulous
> 1990s. Still, the (linear) average changes are -.13 for "Better" and
> .16 for "Worse," respectively. The units are percentage points per
> (approx.) month. ("Same" and "Unsure" are trendless, and I ignored
> them.)
>
> The peak in optimism (trough in pessimism) measured this way occurred
> in January 2004 -- I guess when people realized the Iraq adventure
> wouldn't be a cakewalk after all. From that point on, the linear
> trend has slopes (monthly changes) of -.39 (Better) and .38 (Worse),
> respectively. Pretty dramatic.
You're plotting changes rather than levels, right? Here are the levels of the Conference Board's consumer confidence and the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment indexes. The CB measure heavily reflects the state of the job market, while Michigan doesn't. In any case, things are not as bubbly as 2000, but they're not as grim as you say.
CB Mich
1990 91.5 81.6
1991 68.5 77.6
1992 61.6 77.3
1993 65.9 82.8
1994 90.6 92.3
1995 100.0 92.2
1996 104.6 93.6
1997 125.4 103.2
1998 131.7 104.6
1999 135.3 105.8
2000 139.0 107.6
2001 106.6 89.2
2002 96.6 89.6
2003 79.8 87.6
2004 96.1 95.2
2005 100.3 88.6
2006 105.9 87.3
2007 107.4 88.9