Consumer confidence plunges, lowest since the Carter administration

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So how is that Stimulus working for everyone now? Well, Obama has accomplished something only Carter had previously accomplished. The Consumer Confidence Index has been measured for 404 months since the beginning of 1978. There are only two months during the Carter administration where the Consumer Confidence Index was lower than it is now, and those two months were quite a bit lower than other months during that period of time. Even during 2009 and 2010, the index never got quite this low. From the WSJ:

The severe drop suggests the debt-ceiling debate heightened worries about the U.S. economic future. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan early-August consumer sentiment index dropped to 54.9 from 63.7 at the end of July and 63.8 in early July, according to sources who have seen the report released Friday. The latest reading was far below the 62.0 expected by economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires.

The preliminary August current conditions index fell to 69.3 from 75.8 in late July. The expectations plummeted to 45.7 from 56.0. . . .