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U.S. Consumer Gloom Spreads
Carl Gutierrez, 02.13.09, 01:30 PM EST
Americans aren't expecting much from the economy in the coming months.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/13/consumer-confidence-gdp-markets-econ-0213_recession_22.html

American consumers dug themselves a little deeper into their economic hole on Friday, offering up sentiment figures that indicated they won't be shopping the United States out of its financial woes in the near future.
On a preliminary basis, the Reuters/University of Michigan consumer confidence index took a greater fall in February than Wall Street had expected. The miss, which ended up at 56.2, came in the wake of massive monthly jobless report, and turmoil in Washington over its efforts to rescue the U.S. economy. (See "Details On The Deal.") Economists had expected a 60.1 reading.
In January the confidence index was 61.2. What was interesting about February's figure was the wide gap between how Americans fell about the economy now, and how it will look in the future.
Looking at current conditions, the index actually rose, if only slightly, to 67.1 from 66.5. But the index of consumer expectations, which measures sentiment in the months ahead, dropped to 49.1, the lowest level seen since May 1980. That was the level that created an audience for Ronald Reagan and his question: "are you better off than you were four years ago?"
In any event, the low levels feed into a troubling cycle of weak spending, which leads to weak productivity, which leads to job losses, which, in turn, leads to more weak spending.
Appropriately enough, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve published a report on Friday predicting the U.S. economy would shrink 5.2% between January and March of this year, which would be the weakest level since 1982.
Investors appeared indifferent to the new economic data, even though analysts had recently predicted a decline of only 1.1%. The yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note rose to 2.85% from 2.73%, indicating more fear of inflation than recession.
Meanwhile, Moody's said Friday that it was retaining its negative ratings outlook on all of the U.S. states.