CURRENT MOON

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Are These People on Crack?


MarketWatch reports that:

""Despite generally mediocre attitudes, consumers have performed admirably over the past two years, overcoming a variety of obstacles such as surging energy prices, hurricanes, rising interest rates, and now the housing sector 'bust,'" said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at RBS Greenwich Capital. "In contrast to the prevailing view, we believe that consumer spending will hold up just fine in 2006."

The percentage of consumers who think jobs are plentiful rose to 28.4% from 27.4%, the highest in this expansion. The number who thinks jobs are hard to get also rose slightly, to 20.7% from 20.2%.

The percentage who thinks conditions are "good" rose to 28.3% from 26.4%, the highest since August. The percentage who thinks conditions are "bad" fell to 14.7% from 15.4%.

Despite sagging home sales, the number of consumers who expect to buy a home in the next six months rose to 4%, the highest level since last April."


For the love of Venus, stop buying things on credit. And, BTW, "buying on credit" is what's really meant by "consumers have performed admirably over the past two years, overcoming a variety of obstacles."

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