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With the addition of the most recent NYT/CBS News poll, we now see a broad trend across several major polls: the American people have become far more pessimistic about the state of the economy.
The NYT/CBS News poll out yesterday found that 39 percent believe the economy is getting worse, which is a 13-point increase from just last month, and the highest number in a few years.
The Washington Post/ABC News poll from earlier this week found 44 percent thought the economy was getting worse–the highest it has been in over two years.
Similarly, a Gallup poll from last week found only 33 percent of Americans thought the economy was getting better, a large drop from January when the poll found 41 percent optimistic about the economy.
This is bad news for an incumbent president with jobs and the economy still the top issues with Americans. Obviously, the less optimistic people are about the economy, the more likely it is they will want to seek a replacement for the head of our government.
Given that there is still over a year until the election, which is plenty of time for opinions to change, probably the bigger worry for the Obama administration is that this pessimism could become self-fulfilling. If people are more negative about the future, they can become more reluctant to spend money on unnecessary goods. This could reduce overall demand and in turn make those who watch or depend on the “luxury” sector more pessimistic.
49 Comments
Barry is blessed in his enemies. So far, all losers. So far.
Didn’t check out the links but guessing it’s gasoline prices.
They should be much lower a year from now. Still in the throes of yet another bubble, this one in energy & precious metals.
Remains to be seen whether gasoline prices stay high enough long enough to lead to a double dip.
If yes, then there will be no policy response this time and O will be toast no matter how crazy the R is.
But still much too early to call.
Jon, I appreciate your concern for the re-election of the incumbent president but I don’t share it.
Obama is trapped. The stimulus was insufficient, much too little. Now that he is parroting the R’s deficit/budget narrative he can’t go back to the well. He’s painted into a corner and the Donald roams around crying “bring the jobs home.”
He’s toast, he really is.
More than gas prices. I think the stimulus picked things up a bit, and now that’s gone. In my own life, most everyone I know is stressed financially and has been for some time. Recent college grads are working as unpaid, or way below minimum wage, interns.
I think people are sick and tired of being sick and tired, as the saying goes. It wears on you after a while.
And my friends are also facing increasing job insecurity, especially teachers and others in the public sector.
With savings depleted and expenses continuing to rise (gas, winter heating season), the stresses have increased for many. Also many have hit the cut off in unemployment compensation and have gone from stressed to desperate.
Plus the attack on unions & public employees is causing more insecurity. Then all you hear about is cutting the deficit which means cutting the kind of spending by government (states as well as federal) that has kept things as “afloat” as they have been.
So far those insulated from ordinary America–this includes most politicians & pundits–are completely blind to what everyone else is going through. That adds to the frustration.
In short, the economy is getting worse.
I take your point. What you describe is typical of turning points.
The diff betw this turning point & others is that this one is a lot weaker.
My many years as an econ forecaster taught me not to underestimate U.S. consumers’ fundamental insatiability. So that could be enough to pull the economy thru.
We’ll see.
The GOP launched Ryan a GOP nobody with a huge media launch his budget cutting ideas like cut everything so we can have a tax cut for the rich were all declared serious by the talking heads. Somehow I don’t think the details of Ryan’s budget soothed any GOPer worries that the GOP had a real plan to help the economy or that the Tea Baggers had their back.
Tea Bagger numbers are cratering into George Bush 30%er territory. I wonder who feels worse about the economy once income and job status are factored in Dems or GOP. People with jobs always feel better than the jobless about the economy.
Obama is going to be hurt by high African American unemployment numbers. I half expect Trump or Sarah to say that Obama is the worse President for African Americans since Reagan.
Hoover and Wilson would of course be real tough to beat in that regard.
My personal, tinfoil hat, theory…
Obama mad a deal to let them gouge us if they agreed to back off next spring, so gas prices come down just before the election.
There’s that too.
Gas prices tend to spike in the summer around memorial day and the 4 th of july as people go on long trips to visit family.
If consumers are still depressed then gas prices might drop because nobody is driving far to visit family. Wallstreet will freak if that happens the oil bubble bursting will hurt the oil branch of the corporate republicans.
Yep, and 0 has made deals but they have nothing to do with saving main street. Please think voting Green next time. Yes the crazy people might win but haven’t they already? Dinner time
What price range of gas do you think would validate your theory? Who did he make the deal with the American oil companies don’t have enough production to do as you suggest the Saudi’s however do.
Aside from the Saudi’s Hugo has an offer that might still be on the table
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2006/apr/03/venezuela.oilandpetrol
Citgo gas stations are owned by Hugo $ 50 gas could save Obama but not much else could.
Must be sad for him to watch his neoliberal house of cards collapsing around him. His adversaries just want his blood and more war, and his friends have abandoned him. All he has left are his handlers and yesman, and the plutocrats whom he thought were his real friends will probably stop returning his calls soon enough.
Assuming facts not in evidence.
Maybe the GOP and Dems could change these numbers by actually talking about creating jobs and saving people’s homes. Obama is not talking about it and even GOP Tea Bag voters don’t seem impressed with Ryan’s cut taxes plan.
People want jobs and the free market is not giving them jobs.
Imaginary Friends can’t be in evidence if the GOP can have imaginary economic theories and imaginary diebold voters then Obama can have imaginary friends.
But I talked to a few of Obama’s imaginary friends they all hate him.
Thers is upstairs!
Late Night: Dumb of the Dead
Well, I only meant that he must be feeling a bit lonely at the top. Just speculation on my part. Believe me, though, I have very little sympathy for him. The neoliberal policies he interprets as virtuous have led him, inevitably imho, to this fall. If one could talk of a tragic flaw in Obama, and there may be more than one, I wouldn’t hesitate to say it is this trust in policies which are purported to help solidify the world but in reality only give cover to the capitalists continued rape of the planet.
Newsclips report that Obama has ordered an investigation into high gas prices, looking for speculators and gougers. But you know that…
The situation is dire, there is no money in any consumer’s ‘budget’ for higher gas prices (or higher anything prices).
Indie truckers and trucking companies won’t absorb higher prices for long, and then everything goes up in price.
Most consumers use their credit card for fueling, meaning next month and thereafter comes another minicrash.
Meanwhile the credit card banks are making windfall revenues from the 2-3 points they get off the top of every credit-card dollar.
Obama’s investigation announcement sounds like a war drum. If he has to release the gasoline reserves, someone’s gonna be sorry. But I can’t imagine gas prices won’t fall very soon or be subsidized with reserves. The alternative is the end of our society.
The gas spike after Katrina maxed out a lot of credit cards, led to refinancings & home equity loans. The next spike in 07/08 (?) broke the camel’s back.
The US is the only developed society that rides on cheap gas prices. The other societies have margins they can play with. The US has no margin.
This isn’t a typical seasonal spike with a back-to-normal resolution. The money to pay for higher gas cost is no longer available.
Grocery prices aren’t helping.
People aren’t stupid enough to believe that cutting taxes on corporations and the wealthy is going to help. Unfortunately, the Very Serious People have bought into it (tax cuts benefit them, and they’re ‘the people who matter’), and the politicians would rather listen to the very Serious People than pay attention to what’s really being said.
The Greens aren’t going to do it. They’re a minor third party, with no power above the local level (and not much there). You might remember that in 2008, the Republicans bought the Greens in Pennsylvania, and I think some other states.
They do sometimes talk about jobs.
The aren’t doing anything about jobs, though. And now the Ds are falling into the budget-cutting deficit-reduction trap, so they aren’t going to do anything to actually fix the economy either.
His trust in bipartisanship and conciliatory policies has done even more to get him painted into that corner.
‘We told you so!’ is so true here.
Still time for opinions to change. Shouldn’t the voters evaluate the whole term before voting?
Those clip-n-save coupons have gone with the wind unless you can afford a newspaper that’s also gone with the wind.
Here comes warmer weather. Maybe farmers markets will surge. Corner huckster stands. What’s new and maybe exciting are the smart phones and google maps. ‘Grocery’ may be where you find it and who tells you what’s there and for how much.
We did that in Charlotte during the last gas spike & shortage. It worked & was beautiful to behold.
Both major parties should contribute to a third party, just to give people a real choice.
I’m thinking that if these people with possibly bigger problems than we have (e.g., see ChevonToxico.Com and information about Роспил Rospil) can improve their situation, then we can too.
Yes! Just like when professional sports leagues expanded. And the new parties can draft pols from the establishment.
Brother, Can You Paradigm?
Yes, I agree, but with what…a flash mob? Even confronting the Prez on Manning just led to lies and equivocation. We live in a very sleazy nation. How do you combat sleaze?
The rich are not like us.
There’s a reason next year’s Democratic National Convention will be there…
O’s corporate masters are ecstatic.
rub them into the ground. make them desperate. make them so desperate that they will do anything for crumbs. make them so servile they never forget it. make them feel helpless. make them feel so helpless they lose hope.
mission accomplished.
it will get a lot worse. gas prices. food prices. and they own the military so forget about any meaningful protest.
game, set, and match.
Well apparently we here in the US are some of the last folks on a planet full of people for which the wisdom of “no escape” is now dawning in our minds– especially since Fukushima and the revelation of the toxicities posed by GMO everything. Such realization is a vast improvement over a decade ago when the problems were completely ignored or the messengers got shot for bringing them up.
Now about those flash mobs …
“Vote mobs’ shake up election” (By Amber Hildebrandt, CBC News, Posted: Apr 6, 2011 7:53 PM ET)
The video: “University of Guelph Vote Mob II – Surprise Harper ;-)“
As Europe is in the middle of its own very serious problems as their leadership hasn’t been any better than ours (e.g. “Violent clashes erupt in Italy after Berlusconi survives no-confidence vote“), they are too busy dealing with an extremely angry citizenry so they don’t have a lot of tolerance for bourgeois wealthy Americans. It seems to me that the latter are in for a rude awakening not much different than the British socialites upon their arrival in Australia to “settle” it. I also found that folks that thought they were superior to everyone else usually discovered that they actually weren’t in devastating and unexpected ways. After cutting one’s nose off despite one’s face, often Old Age, Sickness and Death had a hand in that (e.g. “Tea Party Patron Saint Ayn Rand Applied for Social Security, Medicare Benefits,” by Blue Texan, Jan. 27, 2011).
In response to tambershall@33
Yes, and the band play on.
Right now is the perfect moment for a 3rd party candidate like Perot to reappear since neither party is very popular and if the economy tanks again before fall 2012 Obama’s toast.
The reason gas prices have jumped is the sinking dollar.
Thank Bernanke for QE2. Keeping the banks in style, to hell with
everyone else.
They’ve been fudging the rate of inflation for months.
The reality check is a trip to the grocery store.
Obama suddenly bitching about speculators is amusing.
Obama has done everything to protect the investor class.
Holder will conduct another investigation to nowhere.
A distraction from the sinking dollar.
He’s gotta keep that under the radar so
people don’t dump their stocks.
Everything he does is aimed at shielding Wall St.
Everything.
The problem for our corporate overloards is that when people lose hope, they try to force the issue as in Egypt and Libya.
Clemenza:
You’re dead on with your comment. I have been amazed that a progressive blog like FDL has, for the most part, avoided negative commentary regarding the Federal Reserve. The sole beneficiaries of Bernanke’s money printing scheme are the Wall Street banks and multi-national corporations. The corporate MSM portrays QE as being good for the economy whereas in realty it is a negative for all those not members of the financial oligarchy.
It is pretty bad isn’t it. There USD index is getting ready to puncture 72 and slide down to who knows what and yet here there is zero discussion. It’s not like there is even any disagreement about the who, what, why of it all. Just silence. Silver has gone from 28 to 46 in a year. Ordinary Americans are getting robbed through inflation. The Democratic Party we know doesn’t give a shit. Obama seemed to want dollar devaluation. But what is to explain the “progressive” silence? It looks like this very week coming up could be the weak when the wheels really start to fly off. Here, eerie silence.
Yeah, Obama and the “speculators” stuff is really the fucking funniest shit I’ve heard all year. As if “speculator” meant anything anymore. What’s the right analogy that shows just how stupid Obama is or how stupid he and his handlers think we are?? Hmm. It’s so fucking ridiculous because in 2011, everything is hedged with derivatives and everything is linked through all kinds of algorithms and so almost anybody who does any trading at all is speculating. To think in 2011 that you can just divide market players into investors and speculators is absurd. If Obama is serious, he is going to have to ten people tougher than Warren in charge of the Fed, Treasury, SEC, etc and put 95% of Wall Street out of work. Because that what stopping speculators would mean. Obama is really insulting people with this line or he is fucking stupid. Take your pick.
Yeah, Europe does have its problems, but the EURUSD has gone from 7.8ish to 6.2ish in the last twelve months. And Greece looks really bad right now. But unlike last time when Greece looked bad, this time there is no flight to the USD. The USD is that ugly. It could really go quite to shit this week. If you follow closely what is happening to gold and silver these last three weeks, it really does feel like this week the USD could give up the ghost.
The MSM is doing serious damage now.
When nearly all US media is owned by a handfull of corporations,
they become the gatekeepers of information.
Their deliberate failure to point to Federal Reserve policies being central to US inflation and debt is masked by claiming that the dismantling of unions and the New Deal is the cure.
Evil SOB’s
If we were governed by actual public servants and a true representative Congress, I’d say you’re right. The dollar could tank to shit this week.
But, we’re in deep trouble because we are controlled by a criminal enterprise that will do whatever it takes to keep the banks afloat.
My guess is sooner or later, Bernanke will go to a QE3 and pretend it’s really something else. He’ll give it another name and the talking
heads will pretend it’s another brilliant move to save the economy.
But it’ll have the same effect only worse. Inflation through the roof for us while the casino stays open for business.
This probably encourages pessimism.
http://clarionadvisory.com/?p=13020
Oh, you mean the same MSM that propped Bush up? The same MSM that “tingled” when Obama came on the scene? The same MSM that you all decried and then got into the same Obama bed with?
Those of us on the left who saw Obama for the corporate shill he is…were shouted down at every turn. MSM bad during Bush years. MSM good during the 2008 primary. Now MSM bad again.
It was always bad, and the so-called voices outside the inner circle (DKos and Digby) wanted to create their own new inner circle. That meant banning alternate points of view and selling their souls for 30 pieces of silver
It’s probably just the weather.
It was a cold winter ya know!
That’s what today’s NPR morning edition suggested was to blame for the horrid economy.
They lie…
Exactly, the same shills that are selling corporate serfdom now.
Yeah, I split DK when I realized Obama was a fraud and wasn’t gonna vote for him.
The Obama worship at DK is sickening.
Had to flee.