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Category: Quote Watch

Consumers don't know squat

"Consumer confidence is an utterly useless statistic."

-- Peter D. Schiff, explaining how federal officials fake a healthy U.S. economy when, in fact, we're skating toward a financial collapse much worse than the bursting of the real estate bubble. In his book, "Crash Proof."

It makes sense the consumer confidence is a nutty statistic. As Schiff notes, a man ice skating a lake may have confidence that the ice is thick. But if, in reality, it is thin, the skater will be "very cold, very wet and very drowned."

Confidence doesn't make the ice any thicker.

Reminds me of the University of Michigan consumer confidence index.

Why bother?

I'd like to see a survey to see if Americans have any confidence in the U. of M. confidence index.

Here's a story about a confidence index, saying it hasn't topped an optimistic score of 100 since 2007. Think about that. All the that bubbly 2007 consumer confidence didn't stop the economic collapse of 2008-09, which forced the feds to provide a $1 trillion plus crutch.

Perhaps consumers don't know squat.

Schiff, by the way, way back in 2006, accurately predicted the real estate collapse we're all living today. So don't dismiss his views lightly.