Thursday, December 27, 2007

WTF Article: Consumer Confidence Rises

From the Inquirer, titled "Consumer Confidence Rises in December":

The nation's consumers grew slightly more confident in December despite underlying concerns about the health of the U.S. economy.


The New York-based Conference Board said Thursday that its Consumer Confidence Index advanced to 88.6 in December from a revised 87.8 in November. It was the first increase since July.

How can I comprise like this and start commenting on dumbass articles about the economy? "Confidence" my nuts. I withdrew from intro to micro Freshman year so I could get drunk on Tuesday nights.

Wall Street expected a slight drop to a reading of 87.0, according to Thomson/IFR. Analysts surveyed by Yahoo Finance had projected a stronger 87.5 showing.

Consumer confidence is defined from Wikipedia as "the degree of optimism on the state of the economy that consumers are expressing through their activities of savings and spending".

Hey, just because I had to buy my brother and his fiance a weekend reservation at the Jersey shore because I forgot his birthday, doesn't mean shit about how I feel towards the economy.

But thank god our consumer confidence index rose a whole point during Christmas season. I guess we can forget the subprime crisis, stagnant wages, the resignation to watered-down Miller High Life cases, and driving without airbags because some poor schmoes stole them from my car to probably finance their own Christmas presents, or at least use them to make toy parachutes.

Despite this wonderful news, however, the article tells us what we already know:

"Consumers' short-term outlook regarding business conditions, employment, inflation and stock prices improved marginally," Franco said.


Still, she added: "Persistent declines in the present situation index indicate the economy is still losing momentum."

That index, which measures how consumers feel now about the economy, has been weakening since July and fell again in December to 108.3 from 115.7 the month before.


This reflects growing pessimism about the job market , a key contributor to consumer confidence and consumer spending.

Jesus, I honestly will refuse to do this anymore unless the article deals with marijuana, debutantes, or street crime. It's boring as all hell. Why aren't more bloggers like me? why don't they have original content? Don't they have anything to say about Red Bull? "The White Rapper Show"? Perhaps a funny anecdote about a homeless man on Broad Street?

In fact, a growing number of those surveyed say jobs are hard to get and fewer say jobs are plentiful, Franco said."

So, despite the headline "Consumer Confidence Rises in December", the overall gist is that we are actually screwed.

Hahah I'm not screwed. I just got an iphone. Time to check the appreciation on my inheritance. I'm gonna buy a loft apartment in Savannah, Georgia for the hell of it. Then, I'm gonna burn it down just like in that Coldplay song. You know, the one where Chris Martin is trying to destroy the place to erase the bad memories of something that happened to someone there? I actually thought "A Rush of Blood to the Head" was kinda decent. Yeah; I know it's unfashionable to say that, but let me tell you: Scott is not about following trends. He does what he feels, and he's burn that place down regardless of what happened to anyone there.

4 comments:

Lauren said...

You do realize that I worked for The Conference Board in NYC and had interactions with the author of the article.

It was so boring that I thought Ohio might offer more exciting opportunities.

Lindsay said...

Which card in the TCB Kings deck wrote the article, Pukie?

Lauren said...

Unfortunately she was not in the deck...different department.

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