Just some quick thoughts on how consumers are seeing the state of things…
Oil
What excuse do you have this week to raise oil prices
- Increases in gasoline
- Increases in consumer products
- Increases in heating oil
- Increases in natural gas
Mortgage Rates
What excuse do you have this week to raise mortgage rates or tighten guidelines
- Cannot qualify even with great credit
- Higher rate for great credit
- Higher down payment requirements on everything
The fact is, industries seem to shoot consumers in the foot when the economy gets to firing on all cylinders. Political spin & opinion spread like a wildfire whether true, false, or half truth corrupting consumer confidence, and eating into grocery budgets. The average consumer sees right through the BS or market overreaction as a chance to gouge, and I for one am betting on the consumer to punish wall street for playing games with their Christmas money & their dreams of a better life. I think consumers see one excuse after another to inflate something only to see it come down in a few months- analyst call it a correction on an over reaction- consumers call it shaft me hard while you can.
I’m pretty fed up with it myself and hope consumers sit out the drama in the credit market. I hope they sit out so long that large controlling forces have to bend over and take it themselves- roughly.
Consumers ask, do I believe the sky has fallen on the economy? No. Am I being charged for the perception that it is? Yes.
