U.S. Consumer Confidence Unexpectedly Drops to Two-Year Low

sf gate ^

[RicocheT]

“Unexpectedly” everything President Barry Soetoro touches or turns his attention to turns to dust.

[Pollster1]

“Unexpectedly” everything President Barry Soetoro touches or turns his attention to turns to dust.

You're just a hateful, greedy, racist, bigot clinging to God and guns. Everything Obama has done turned out unexpectedly worse than predicted, but that's only because we didn't realize how bad things were until he started trying to fix them. I have it on the best authority (from Krugman to Biden and the Dixie Chicks, plus MSNBC and CNN experts) that Obama's next trillion dollar effort is the one that will fix everything . . . unless we unexpectedly discover that Bush's mess goes even deeper than we thought.

[Grampa Dave]

One news item that has appears to be kept quiet might be the decrease in optional consumer spending even in N. Californicator land.

Starting about 2 weeks ago, my wife and a few friends have seen a decrease of customers/clients where discretional income is spent:

For example: Medium $ to Upscale restaurants during lunch hours. Hair saloons, fingernail/toenail spas, coffee break time at the $4/cup places, and the upscale grocery stores.

Apparently, Halloween spending was trending down, and I have yet to see any articles noting that. However, a very reliable site was projecting a fair sized downward trend of spending:

Halloween Spending and Retail Buying Trends 2013 - 2005 - Sales Predictions
http://retailindustry.about.com/od/statisticsresearch/a/Halloween-Spending-And-Retail-Buying-Trends-2005-2010-Sales-Predictions.htm

“Halloween will not be a treat for U.S. retailers, according to the annual Halloween Spending Survey conducted by the National Retail Federation (NRF). In every way that consumers increased their Halloween spending in 2012, they intend to decrease it in 2013, according to the 2013 Halloween spending survey. If consumer spending actually matches consumer intentions, retailers will be ringing $1 billion less in sales in the month of October. It is worth noting that this survey was completed long before the U.S. government shutdown spooked consumers, so Halloween sales numbers will likely be even scarier when retailers are counting up their 2013 Halloween loot.”

How about the negative economic impact re the reality of the real costs of ObozoscamScare.

Look at the pre Black Friday ads by major retail companies and their pushing of lay away plans. If they weren’t concerned, they wouldn’t be spending a ton of TV ad money on pre Black Friday ads and Christmas lay away plans. It is apparent that their focus groups are showing a weakening of our economy due to the coming down side impact ObozoCareScam on so many American families.