Goldman Sachs identified a potential culprit for sour consumer sentiment readings: A decline in happiness.
The consumer sentiment index tracked by the University of Michigan hit record lows this year. The index fell 13% year over year in September, due to a drop of almost 8% from August alone.
Economists have widely questioned why sentiment has remained depressed since the Covid pandemic, even as the economy hummed along on paper. Goldman economist Joseph Briggs told clients this week that the downward pressure may stem from broader pessimism in society.
“Low reported economic sentiment likely reflects a more fundamental, downbeat assessment of the state of the world rather than the economy,” Briggs wrote to clients.
Its not the escalating COLA? It definitely isn’t the coming disel crunch. It’s just a sour mood?
You know what helps me when I am in a bad mood? Comfort food. Maybe this Goldman guy should advise that the government let the people eat cake. That sort of advice has always had a good outcome.
I’m a Statesian, so if you were down here I would recommend an org like the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Instead, I recommend channels like Red Pen who are based in Canada and bring a Marxist analysis to the forefront. I cannot say which orgs are good or bad as I am not familiar. I do think it’s important to point out that welfare in capitalism is not socialism. The Nordic countries are social democracies, not socialist, and as such are both reliant on the imperialist system propping up the west and are seeing a withering of social safety nets as capitalism continues to decay.
Sorry, I did mince words when I labelled social democracy as socialism. Sometimes I find myself simplifying things because I feel like describing idealogies and systems of government can get confusing for those who aren’t too familiar with all the terminology yet.
I will check out Red Pen, thank you. I’m also still on Lemmy and all of my words still stand in case anyone else is reading.
I appreciate your recommendations.
No problem!