The University of Michigan’s widely respected Institute for Social Research has been gauging consumer sentiment for decades. Director Richard Curtin is interviewed on the most recent findings and what it might mean for 2009.
It’s not for the faint of heart.
In part, he says the current holiday shopping season probably will be a bust and the lethargy will continue through next year.
“Overall personal consumption expenditures are likely to fall by just over 1 percent in 2009, making it the worse year for consumer spending in the past half-century,” he said.
He hints that we might be “at the end of the beginning” of the recession.
See and read the interview here.
A little brighter news is the Fed’s interest rate cut, which will produce the lowest mortgage rates in 45 years. That means it will be the best market for homebuyers in two generations (if they can sell the house they might already be living in).
Is this a light at the end of the tunnel, or just an oncoming train?
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