Good news, right? This seems like good news. I wonder if people will finally start to “feel” it. So far Americans seem to believe we are in a great depression. Paul Krugman had an interesting insight into this phenomenon today: Surveys of consumer sentiment and political polls continue to show that Americans have a very negative view of the Biden economy. There’s still no consensus about the reasons for this disconnect. But there are some new studies that shed some light on what’s going on, and I have a new way of looking at the numbers that may also clarify things. […] Americans say that things are bad; shouldn’t we take them at their word? One answer is: Look at what they do, not at what they say. As it happens, the plunge in consumer sentiment during the Biden years has been similar in magnitude to the plunge during and after the 2008 financial crisis — which is itself a remarkable observation, given that the post-2008 slump dragged on for years, while after Covid we rapidly returned to full employment. However, consumer spending, which stalled during the last crisis, has just kept powering along this time. Here’s a table, with all variables shown as percentage changes from the start date: So consumers may say that it’s a lousy economy, but their spending suggests that they’re feeling quite good about their personal financial situations. I guess they believe bad things are happening, but only to other people. Anyway, the analysts at…