{"id":389697,"date":"2026-04-13T11:22:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T11:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/389697\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T11:22:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T11:22:13","slug":"when-the-consumer-speaks-it-is-a-good-idea-to-listen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/389697\/","title":{"rendered":"When the consumer speaks, it is a good idea to listen"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the American public tells one something it might be a good idea to listen.<\/p>\n

What that something may be is discontent with the direction of the economy, gasoline prices and just about everything else.\u00a0 The failure of ceasefire talks in Iran over the weekend will only add to consumers\u2019 deep concerns about the economy.<\/p>\n

These concerns were already evident in recent consumer and business surveys showing that expectations are for inflation to remain elevated for some time because of the continuing impact of tariffs and, more recently, the oil shock.<\/p>\n

Get Joe Brusuelas\u2019s Market Minute economic commentary every morning.\u00a0Subscribe now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Consumer sentiment turned sour in March, with the University of Michigan survey dropping below neutral for the first time in the post-financial crisis era.<\/p>\n

The University of Michigan index fell to 47, which implies that more than half of the households surveyed held a negative view of their current and future financial conditions and employment.<\/p>\n

We surmise that most of the household discomfort stems from perceptions of inflation. Six weeks into the attacks on energy facilities in the Middle East, and on top of the obvious increases in the cost of food and gasoline, consumers now expect inflation to increase from 3.3% to 4.8% over the next 12 months.<\/p>\n

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In the longer term, actual inflation has been above the Federal Reserve\u2019s 2% target for six years, which might account for the heightened expectations over that period.<\/p>\n

That elevated level might also imply a loss of confidence in the Fed\u2019s ability to quash inflation without a recession.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the American public tells one something it might be a good idea to listen. What that something…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[114,85,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-389697","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}