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Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index measured -45 in May, down from -39 in each of the previous two months. It is the lowest reading in Gallup’s trend during the coronavirus pandemic, and likely the lowest confidence has been since the tail end of the Great Recession in early 2009. Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index is a summary measure of Americans’ perceptions of current economic conditions and their outlook for the economy. It has a theoretical range of +100 (if all respondents say the economy is excellent or good and that it is getting better) to -100 (if all say it is poor...

…this is what I’d love to hear from the President. I want it defiant and optimistic - to give those who love America a wonderful outlet and channel bitterness into future victory. "As I acknowledge the political reality that there is no longer a path to re-election... I have directed my campaign team to immediately form a new Party: the MAGA Party. I am a builder. And with you, we have built a beautiful new movement that is already the future of American politics. It is a movement of love. It is a movement that agrees THE BEST IS YET...

...Even after the war, the federal government would be paying pensions to nearly one million Union veterans or their dependents, at a total cost (by 1900) of almost 22% of all federal expenditures. And for what? Emancipation, yes. Union, yes. But the promise that emancipation would produce an egalitarian, biracial society was cruelly smashed by the failures of Reconstruction, and reunion only resulted by the 1880s in a revival of the same old alliance of corrupt Northern Democrats and white-hooded Southern Democrats that had brought the country to the brink of war in the first place.

WASHINGTON - The Trump administration's decision to let states chart their own responses to the coronavirus crisis rather than impose a national strategy will cost thousands of lives and is likely to result in an open-ended outbreak rolling across the country, a dozen public health experts told NBC News. The only way to win what President Donald Trump has called a war against an "invisible enemy" is to establish a unified federal command, the experts insist - something Trump has yet to do. So far, the federal government hasn't leveraged all its authority and influence to dramatically expand testing and...

The French are more gloomy about the future of their country than anyone else in the world, a new study has found. A new study from Ipsos has revealed that the French are the most likely to think their country is heading down the wrong path. In fact, a full 88 percent of respondents to the survey answered that they think the country is going in the “wrong direction”. This compared with 83 percent of Italians who think their country is also on a downward spiral and 82 percent of Spanish. Sweden and Germany had 73 and 71 percent of...

Recently I've been hearing a lot of conservatives saying things like, "It's over. The left has won. This is no longer America. I'm not even going to celebrate the Fourth of July this year." I confess this disturbs me. I expect feminists to squeal like hysterical little girls. Second Kings, Chapter 6, contains one of my favorite Bible stories. The King of Aram (which was more or less Syria) is waging war against Israel. But every time he sets up an ambush, the prophet Elisha tips off the Israelites and they get away. Because Elisha is a prophet! So he...

Americans are more anxious about the economy now than they were right after the Great Recession ended despite stock market gains, falling unemployment and growth moving closer to full health. Seventy-one percent of Americans say they think the recession exerted a permanent drag on the economy, according to a survey being released Thursday by Rutgers University. By contrast, in November 2009, five months after the recession officially ended, the Rutgers researchers found that only 49 percent thought the downturn would have lasting damage. And that was when the unemployment rate was 9.9 percent, compared with the current 6.2 percent. …

With the European elections opening next week, a new survey shows that most Europeans believe the crisis is not over yet and that “the worst is still to come”, although the trend is slightly improving. A Eurobarometer study released by the European Commission on Monday (12 May) shows Europeans are still depressed about their future. 44% Europeans believe “the impact of the crisis has already reached its peak” while 47% believe “the worst is still to come”. …

The White House regularly threatens to “pivot” to the economy when polls go sour on them, or when it becomes necessary to distract the media — say, when a scandal erupts, or the central project of the administration turns out to be a complete fiasco. Barack Obama’s team has insisted that the topic for 2014 will be “income inequality,” while the rest of us think it’s going to be “oh my goodness, ObamaCare has sucked my checkbook dry,” especially for the middle class. Hey, either way, it’s all about the economy, right?If Obama plans to complain about the economy and...

Americans views on the state of the nation are turning increasingly sour, according to a new national poll. And a CNN/ORC International survey released Friday also indicates that less than a quarter of the public says that economic conditions are improving, while nearly four in ten say the nation’s economy is getting worse. Forty-one percent of those questioned in the poll say things are going well in the country today, down nine percentage points from April, and the lowest that number has been in CNN polling since February 2012. Fifty-nine percent say things are going badly, up nine points from...

Some of you are already shaking your head and arguing with my headline. I can hear the conservative craniums rattling all across America’s fruited plains, her mountain’s majesty, and from sea to shining sea. Let me clarify my title. Let’s start with the first half: Obama Has Won! But you scream back angrily at me, “NO he hasn’t! He didn’t win! We’ll never admit defeat!” Good for you. I appreciate and respect your patriotism and tenacity. Unfortunately, you’re wrong. There’s no denying that one. He was re-elected, and he’s achieved every goal he set out to win short of disarming...

Excerpts: Apollo granted to his Trojan priestess Cassandra the gift of prophecy. But because she resisted his advances he punished her by ensuring that nobody would ever believe what she said. Such has been the fate of pessimists down the ages. Those who interrupt the good cheer of their fellows with the thought that the things about which they are all agreed might go badly wrong are either dismissed as madmen or condemned as fools. ... We have witnessed something similar in the so-called Arab Spring. “Unscrupulous optimism,” as Schopenhauer called it, led both the United States and the nations...

Older people who look on the darker side of life tend to live longer than optimists, who in turn face an increased risk of illness and mortality, a new study by a German research institute found on Thursday. Researchers in Germany and Switzerland found that older people who believe their life satisfaction will be above average in future face a 10-percent higher mortality risk or are more likely to develop physical health problems, the DIW think-tank said. “It is possible that a pessimistic outlook leads elderly people to look after themselves and their health better and take greater precautions against...

Saw this the other day and can't stop thinking about it. It makes all the sense in the world that conservatives would be despondent after Obama's re-election. But more despondent than liberals were after the Bushitler's re-election?A lot more, as it turns out:Why are the numbers so much worse for Republicans now than they were for Democrats in 2004? It can’t be because the GOP thinks Obama’s done irreversible damage to the U.S.; Bush-hating liberals thought the same about Dubya. Besides, we’ve got a deep bench for 2016. Is it a demographic thing, with Republicans fearing that they’ll never (or...

Barely had the counting ceased in last week’s presidential election when the news took a somber turn. Two of the next day’s headlines read “Back to Work, Looming Fiscal Crisis Greets Obama” and my favorite, “America has Sown the Seeds of Its Own Demise.” Politicians either celebrated or decried the results, but regardless of party affiliation most warned of formidable challenges and a perilous future. How did it come to pass that even the resolution of a contested election brings almost zero relief from the relentless focus on problems and threats? How did a country that for much of its...

Spanish voters on Sunday are expected to dismiss the Socialist government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and usher in the conservative People's Party (PP) and its leader, Mariano Rajoy. Mr. Zapatero’s Socialist party (PSOE), which has been in power for eight years, has borne the brunt of public blame for Spain’s increasingly perilous economic situation, which has tainted the party’s leadership candidate, Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba. Meanwhile, Mr. Rajoy has been coasting toward an expected landslide victory without saying much about how he plans to reverse Spain’s economic course... The situation is bleak for the eurozone’s fourth-largest...

In September 2009, Barack Obama and Muammar Qaddafi both addressed the United Nations. It is a pitiful reflection upon the Republic in twilight that, when it comes to the transnational mush drooled by the leader of the free world or the conspiracist ramblings of a pseudo-Bedouin terrorist drag queen presiding over a one-man psycho-cult basket case, it’s more or less a toss-up as to which of them was the more unreal. Just so. Every time Barack Obama stands at his teleprompter and is forced to pretend that he’s interested in deficit reduction, we have taken a step toward that Milton...

Nearly half of CNBC's audience expects the Federal Reserve to announce another quantitative easing program , a much higher proportion than the number of Wall Street professionals who think that's likely. 'Main Street' is also more pessimistic than 'Wall Street', with a majority expecting the U.S. to fall back into a recession . For the first time, CNBC viewers and CNBC.com users were able to answer some of the same questions we've been putting to the pros in our monthly CNBC Fed Survey. Almost 5000 people took the opportunity to share their forecasts. In our unscientific online survey, 48 percent...

A double-dip in home prices, pessimistic consumers and a slowdown in regional manufacturing raised concerns on Tuesday that the economy's soft patch could become protracted. "The question is, 'Is the softer data we're seeing transitory, or is it likely to persist throughout the remainder of 2011?' Right now, that's an open question that investors are trying to figure out," said Michael Sheldon, chief market strategist at RDM Financial in Westport, Connecticut.The U.S. economy grew at a tepid 1.8 percent annual rate in the first three months of the year, and these fresh signs suggest the recovery is still struggling to...

French are world's most pessimistic January 04, 2011 THE FRENCH are the world's most pessimistic people when asked about their prospects for the coming year, a new international study has found. The Voice of the People survey, by BVA-Gallup, polled more than 64,000 people in 53 countries around the world about their attitude to the new year. France was the gloomiest of the countries surveyed, with 61 per cent of people expecting economic difficulties and unemployment to worsen in 2011. Britain was the third most pessimistic, on 52 per cent, behind Iceland and tied with Serbia and Romania. Germany was...