Joy To The World Is A Little Lacking This Year
It’s almost November, and with the weather turning chilly - the East Coast actually got slammed with snow in more than one place yesterday - it’s difficult not to start thinking about Christmas. With the dreary economy breathing down our necks with its own chilly intensity, it’s hard to think of anything but the impending holiday season and the spending automatically associated with it.
Numerous people across the country are wondering the same question: “What can we afford to trim back on?” Or put another way, “What can we afford to continue?”
Christmas has always been a big deal in my family. It’s not so much about the presents - though there have always been plenty of those in past years. When you have a family of six, with four females, the shopping can get a little… well… out of hand - but more about all of us being in the same place at the same time. Arranging schedules to fit 5 adults and one largely egocentric 17-year old is difficult to say the least.
In all honesty, I don’t expect this year to be all that different from years gone by. There might be some cut backs, but nothing astronomical. My father’s job in upper management gives him good job security, and none of my siblings work with the stock market, so they’re not affected by it at all.
Consumer Confidence Contributes To Gloom
The same can’t be said about other families however, and that shows in the bleak consumer confidence report just published this week. And really, it’s difficult to fault them for their glum moods. The media has relentlessly pursued every single negative lead they could find, even finding harsh ways to spin the drop in oil prices.
Then again, in the media’s defense, it’s not like they’ve had to dig very hard.
Falling housing prices, weak earnings reports, AIG, Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the sudden grave details about our financial system needing hundreds of billions of dollars in bailout money, the ins and outs of why that slowly filtered down to the public, the crisis spreading to Europe and Asia…
Yeah, not very hard at all.
So when they’ve been criticized for spending, spending, spending, can we really blame them now for thinking about little more than saving? Many people are worried about their jobs. They don’t know if they’ll have them come Christmas time. For that matter, they don’t know if they’ll have them next week.
Yet another reason why the confidence index plunged from 61.4 in September to 38 in October.
And throw on top of the pile the fact that even the people who want to buy are having problems getting the money in the first place, especially with the larger items that they’d need loans for. The dreary picture looks even more clear… or dreary.
Winter Forecast
No wonder they’re miserable! Depending on who wins the election, confidence levels could change slightly since many people really do seem to be putting even dangerous amounts of faith into their presidential picks. But even with that, don’t expect extra Christmas revenue to pull the American economy or consumer out of their current slump.
As Jerry Webman, chief economist for OppenheimerFunds puts it, “When people believe there will be a recession, there will be a recession.”
And even if they were full of good cheer, I don’t think any positive outlooks could change our direction. Unless we get a Christmas miracle, don’t bet too much on significant changes by the end of the year. We’ve got a little ways longer to go than that.
http://www.smartprofitsreport.com/archives/2007/investment-strategy484.html
Wednesday, October 29, 2008 — by Jeannette Di Louie, Assistant Editor of Mt. Vernon Research
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