U.S. consumer sentiment sours in early January to second lowest level in decade

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Reuters, via Yahoo! Finance

Reuters

U.S. consumer sentiment sours in early January to second lowest level in decade

Fri, January 14, 2022, 10:18 AM

(Reuters) - U.S. consumer sentiment soured in early January, falling to the second lowest level in a decade as Americans fretted about soaring inflation, a survey showed on Friday. ... The University of Michigan said its preliminary consumer sentiment index fell to 68.8 in the first half of this month from a final reading of 70.6 in December.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the index would decline to 70.0. ... Americans have been buffeted by various headwinds despite an overall strong economy, with inflation topping the list of concerns. ... At a current annual rate of 7.0%, inflation is near a 40-year-high, outstripping wage gains. Consumer price increases have broadened from a handful of pandemic-sensitive categories while supply chain disruptions have continued.

The current inflation readings have bolstered expectations that the Federal Reserve will start raising interest rates in March as it seeks to bring down the rate of price increases closer to its 2% flexible target. ... The last few weeks have also seen a surge in COVID-19 cases due to the highly transmissible Omicron variant, which has exacerbated labor shortages as the United States nears maximum employment.

"While the Delta and Omicron variants certainly contributed to this downward shift, the decline was also due to an escalating inflation rate," Richard Curtin, the survey director, said in a statement. ... "Three-quarters of consumers in early January ranked inflation, compared with unemployment, as the more serious problem facing the nation," he added. ... Economic growth is still expected to have grown last year at its fastest pace in almost four decades after falling into a brief recession in 2020 caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

(Reporting by Lindsay Dunsmuir; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Read more: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-consumer-sentiment-sours-early-151853656.html

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My other doom and gloom posts this morning have proven so popular that I thought I'd add another.

Oh, I said "another."

[LogicFirst]

1. The manufacturers, distributors and sellers need to cut prices. Then consumers will buy.

[George II]

2. Not yours, but I hate the subjective headline, "sours"?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

4. I get it. I went with Y!F, because they had the story. They picked it up from Reuters.

Since the survey was about sentiment, it's hard not to be subjective.

Thanks for writing.

Happy New Year.

[Sherman A1]

3. Well of course when the consumer is treated to a daily blast of doom and gloom cable noise

highlighting empty shelves, higher prices, supply chain woes, pandemic fears, ad nauseam When the real story is price gouging by corporations and the 1% laughing all the way to the bank.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

5. I don't have cable, so I have no insight on what gets said on the cable TV shows.

I did go to the Aldi yesterday afternoon. There were a lot of empty shelves, and for the things that were there, the prices were going up. People notice this, and they vote with their pocketbooks.

We might see Nancy Pelosi handing the Speaker's gavel to somebody else a year from now.

Thanks for writing.

Happy New Year.

[Sherman A1]

9. The Aldi in my area is stocked just fine

a few spot outages, but with knowledge of 40+ years in the grocery business I can tell you there have always been spot outages and when the world jumped on the "just in time" inventory mantra things worked great right up to when hiccups happen. Those hiccups happen all the time when you rely on a system of flow rather than carrying sufficient backstock.

Prices are going up they always have done so for lots of items, but it's more about price gouging and taking advantage of the hysteria than it is any other reason.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

10. It might be a little bit due to the weather lately too.

I'm in northern Virginia. I don't know where Aldi's distribution center is. We've got more snow coming starting Sunday afternoon.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

13. As an aside, it looks as if you're in for some snow tonight.

https://abc17news.com/weather/2022/01/12/weather-alert-day-snow-expected-to-start-late-friday/

[OneCrazyDiamond]

14. I won't shop Aldis until they unionize. n/t

[GB_RN]

6. (Repost From Another Of Your Threads) 100 Ships Off Of San Diego Harbor...

Waiting to unload due to a shortage of truck drivers (COVID, etc). Corporations laid people off in 2020 and took the bailout money, but didn’t hire people back. Now they complain about a worker shortage and are using the port backlog and “worker shortage” as justification to raise prices. In the meantime, corporate profits are at record highs. But the news media aren’t reporting this.

Wonder why?

As my maternal grandmother, a product of the Great Depression used to say, “Never trust a Republican, they’re only for big business.”

[mahatmakanejeeves]

8. Down from how many? Three months ago, there were X ships at anchor.

Do you recall what that number was?

Thanks for writing.

Happy New Year.

[GB_RN]

11. OK, My Data Was A Little Old

I'd gotten it from a Dan Price tweet. I just googled and the latest I can find is from December. The number then was 46, down from a high of around 100 in November. There was a back logged high of 132 container ships in the Los Angeles/Long Beach port in September, also (per USA Today Fact Check) The administration and the port took some steps to force companies to get their crap moving, by charging a daily storage fee for containers in the port (companies were using the port as a free storage site, basically), and that helped move things along.

So the number that remains in backlog in San Diego is probably somewhat less than that 46, but I can't find a current figure. I wouldn't put it past companies to artificially store stuff to keep things in short supply to justify on the going price hikes, though.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

12. I think someone was flying drones over those container ships to keep count of them.

It's somewhere on Twitter maybe; I don't know.

Thanks.

[Jimbo S]

15. I have some insight into this

The guy two cubicles from me has the task of getting our supplies into port. I picked his brain this week. He said the number of ships waiting to get into Long Beach is the same as last fall, despite the President and media reporting the number is down. The difference?
The numbers of ships anchored within 40 miles of port. When someone reports a count, only the number within 40 miles counts. My co-worker says the numbers of ships is the same because there are more ships outside the 40 miles (up to 150 miles). Something about wind patterns or something this time of years, authorities don't want so many ship within vicinity of one another.

[nowforever]

7. pandemic

All of these woes are caused by a 2 year pandemic which has sweep the globe. Inflation is what happens when the supply demand curve is twisted by 2 years of a disease ravaging the planet. It is not corporations gouging people, it's what happens when demand outpaces supply.

[rockfordfile]

16. Actually at some point it will be price gouging. Americans aren't going to fall for anymore bs

[monkeyman1]

17. Amen ! we have a winner !