Consumer Confidence lowest since the 80's

On May 16th, the numbers came out. Sure enough, consumer confidence is the lowest seen in years, more than 20 years to be exact. ``These are terrible readings,'' Richard Dekaser, chief economist at National City Corp. in Cleveland, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. ``The popular sentiment right now is that the economy is in deep distress and it's looking towards dim prospects going forward.'' Dekaser also called the results "puzzling" as the core inflation registered a mere 0.2 advancement in the month of April according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics here.

This is why the chief economist for National City Corp. called the results "puzzling".

Could it be that the guys at Washington are simply not reporting uncredible numbers? The Bureau of Labor Statistics said "petroleum-based energy fell 1.6 percent" in the month of April. Did you see the cost of gas go down in April, folks? I didn't think so.

Do you really think that we have only experienced the usual 2.3% inflation over the past 12 months? Me neither....but that's what the guv'mint says in its Consumer Price Index report (this reports inflation data month-to-month).

On other (better) news, due to the "low inflation numbers", bonds were snapped up, and as a result home loan mortgage interest rates fell approximately 0.25% on the CPI news.

Could it be that we should be watching what the consumer thinks over what goverment economists tell us what to think? Could it be that the government is simply not telling us the whole story? (They'd never do that!)

We may come to a time, in a short while, where government statistics are loudly contradicted by more objective, third party numbers. And, when that happens, you will wish you owned commodities!