Excerpt
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): Well, we did have these good retail sales numbers today. What do they tell us, if anything, about the health of the economy. And, by the way, they seem to be contradicted by consumer confidence survey numbers, which are down.
ROBEN FARZAD, Bloomberg Businessweek: Yes, consumer confidence numbers are down to Reagan "morning in America" levels.
I mean, 30 years ago, or 31 years ago, it just tells you how far this economy has fallen. I mean, after all, unemployment is near double digits. There isn't much to really hang your hat on if you are someone looking for wealth effect. Gas prices are up, certain food prices are up. Cost-of-living for people is not keeping up with wage increases.
And yet you go to an Apple store or you go to certain places in the economy, luxury car dealerships, and you practically have to get in a line. And I think this speaks to the very bifurcated nature of this economy. Certain people are doing very well. And on the flip side of it, you have the CEO of Wal-Mart come out recently and say, you know, you should see the traffic in the store the night that food stamp benefits are recharged.
I mean, people are literally paycheck to paycheck, benefit to benefit.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So do we just -- does the country just live with this kind of contradictory information, you know, for some time to come? And we keep hearing the word psychology, the psychology of what investors are doing. And how much is that a factor?
ROBEN FARZAD: You know, psychology is not monolithic. If you could put the market on a therapist's chair, I mean, one week, it's feeling really bullish. The next week, it's bearish. The next week, it has mother issues.
Humm.... this sounds like Wall Street is suffering from Bipolar Disorder.
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