00:00 Speaker a
The consumer mood is lower in September, with the University of Michigan’s index of 55.1 compared to August 58.2.
00:09 Speaker a
So what does this mean for consumer spending that led to a different uneven economy? Let’s bring Joanne HSU, Director of the University of Michigan, consumer research. Joanne, thank you for joining us.
00:21 Speaker a
Hm, in fact, you, in the arrow, weakened. At the same time, you know that we were just talking about personal expenses. Personal costs in August actually noted UM. We are talking about September UH mood. Despite how you as if you explain the alienation we continued to see between sentiment and expenses?
00:37 Joanne HSU
It is really important to understand that consumer costs are not generated evenly throughout the US. Most consumer costs are generated by high income and high assets. And indeed, when we look at UH sentiment trends this month, UM, those with large stock packages, supported strong shares. Their moods were stable and other users saw a decline.
00:57 Joanne HSU
Hm, and so what we see is the strong consumer costs, relatively speaking, they are supported by people who have the resources to do so, but most Americans are not convinced in the future. Hm, and when UH is perceived as weakened in the labor markets, it is difficult to understand how we could universally maintain the strong cost of all residents.
01:12 Speaker a
Joanne, this is such an important thing, um, we feel about what we have talked about a lot about the so -called K -shaped economy or any monker you want to give, if you want, the division of income inequality.
01:22 Speaker a
When you look at your readings and that sentiment gap, what does the gap look like? Can you evaluate this? And did it get worse over time? Does it remain almost the same? How did it develop?
01:31 Joanne HSU
We have always seen a slightly gap with higher income consumers of higher assets have more favorable images of the economy than lower income, lower asset consumers. And, you know, it’s not very surprising. Interestingly, in 2019 These groups were merged in April and May, when UH rhetoric actually reached its peak, and in April. Was announced at extremely high rates.
01:44 Joanne HSU
Hm, since then, you know, at that time, consumers of all time have been influenced by this policy and, given that the transfer to consumer prices has been relatively slow, UM, and many of these rates have been returned back.
02:05 Speaker a
And Joanne, what about the other great exclusion we talk about a lot in the US, and that is political exclusion. I know that you have all been watching the moods of the political party for some time. What changes do we see there?
02:14 Joanne HSU
Correctly. So we saw the division of guerrillas and the feelings dating back to the Reagan Administration. So it really is nothing new. However, what is really exceptional in the current situation is that the partisan exclusion is greatly determined by the differences in how the UM federal policy will affect the economy.
02:23 Joanne HSU
Basically, UH Republicans expect this current policy to eventually lead to some economic growth, while Democrats are really worried that this will lead to higher unemployment, and UM deteriorates business conditions and so on. UM, Interestingly, One Thing That All People Do Agree on, Um Whether Or Not You UH Disagree on the Long Run, Is That in the Short Run It’s Going to Make Inflation UM WORSE.
02:40 Joanne HSU
UH that consumers are widely used in political spectrum, hoping for more inflation than it was earlier this year. Hm, they are not convinced that we are out of the forest, when it comes to inflation, deteriorates.