Consumer confidence declines again in September, led by current situation.
The Conference Board reports US Consumer Confidence Declines Again in September
Key Points
- US consumer confidence fell in September to a five-month low on growing concerns about job prospects and the broader economy.
- A gauge of present conditions fell to the lowest level in a year, while a measure of expectations for the next six months also dropped in September.
- Expectations are below the threshold of 80 that typically signals a recession ahead since February 2025.
Bloomberg reports US Consumer Confidence Falls to Five-Month Low on Job Concerns
US consumer confidence fell in September to a five-month low on growing concerns about job prospects and the broader economy.
The Conference Board’s gauge of confidence decreased 3.6 points to 94.2, data released Tuesday showed. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a reading of 96.
A gauge of present conditions fell 7 points to the lowest level in a year, while a measure of expectations for the next six months also dropped in September.
The Conference Board’s report showed the share of consumers saying jobs were plentiful declined to the lowest level since February 2021. The share that said jobs were hard to get was unchanged.
The difference between these two — a metric closely followed by economists to gauge the job market — narrowed to the smallest since early 2021.
“Consumers’ assessment of business conditions was much less positive than in recent months, while their appraisal of current job availability fell for the ninth straight month to reach a new multiyear low,” Stephanie Guichard, senior economist at the Conference Board, said in a statement.
Jobs Sentiment Is No Surprise
September 4, 2025: Year-Over-Year Small Business Employment Growth Barely Above Zero
ADP reports the total YOY small business growth as +19,000.
The Unemployment Level Is Now Greater than Job Openings
On September 3, I noted The Unemployment Level Is Now Greater than Job Openings
For the first time since the pandemic unemployment is above openings.
The nonfarm payroll response rate is 42.6 percent with the same issues as with JOLTS
Expect more negative revisions.
Jobs Report Misery: Only 22,000 Gain in August, June Revised to -13,000
August was a bad month for job seekers. Here are the grim details.
I’m open for business and enjoying high margins on products produced right in my backyard ~ thanks to working smarter and harder.
Americans continue to exist, there are just fewer of us willing to step up…
Got gold stocks?
Got some VIX options?
Got three days of 3%+ gains in the market in the last five days? This market is fish paying you to shoot other fish in a barrel
I am buttoned down, thinking of preserving useful assets and liquidity, even as inflation rises. Fun and games are for another day.
cash is melting
The stock market is a money laundering machine.
If the bankers and their buddies just issued money to themselves (which they do as well), people might notice.
So they issue stocks, then print money and buy said stocks with the money they printed.
Then they sell stocks or get loans collateralized by aforementioned stocks and spend it on whores, drugs, yachts, and wars. It also funds their pedophile activities and perverted cult practices.
You vote or work for these people.
And they call you useless eaters.
= gold 3.900$
place your bets WHAT DAY of what year GOLD WILL BE UP 500$ ?
2027 2028 ?
12/31/2025?
no !! too early , unless war w/ Russia an-or china
but, nuclear threat or Taiwan war would do trick
– place your bets WHAT DAY of what year GOLD WILL BE UP 500$ ? 2027 2028 ?
> Isn’t the important question, When will the U.S. Revalue their Gold Holdings, from the massive undervalue stated right now? (My guess is sometime closer to the Mid-Terms)
>> Then wouldn’t the next but far more important question, be How much will the U.S. and Many others Sell, as a result? (My guess is enough to put us in good shape).
Once this is done, The U.S. and a lot of Countries will be able to pay down / off some of their debt. Credit ratings will spike upwards, and good things will be planned ahead awaiting this all to occur.
>>> Sometimes the Journey is worth the wait, and this IMHO, will be one of them. Tariffs will be much better aligned, and in order by then, or damn close to it. All the changes economically by the new administration will mostly be in place. The cost savings from DOGE and elimination of useless programs the Taxpayers were not responsible for will be a savings we will use elsewhere Ex. Medical. We will have much more Fair, Firmer and Committed relationships across the Globe. I see a whole lot of good heading this Countries way, but not quite yet, as it hasn’t all been sown together yet, but it will be…
Isn’t the important question, When will the U.S. Revalue their Gold Holdings, from the massive undervalue stated right now? (My guess is sometime closer to the Mid-Terms)
The U.S. and a lot of Countries will be able to pay down / off some of their debt.
===
why it is important???
===
DO YOU REALLY THINK USA would ship 1 trln worth of gold to china or japan to pay off paper / non-paper IOUs???
Jesus!!.. you are really naive!!!
alx
ps
buddy . USA’s IOU is paper worth as papers in briefcase in movie dumb and dumber.. after harry+friend shopping spree..
I hope you watched one.
No silly, they always hold the Gold, but they allow Who/You to invest in the Gold via paper. Value goes up your paper makes money, the value goes down your paper looses money. America always Holds the Gold.
… and everyone will get a pony!
Where do you buy your Gold? Maybe on-line, or a broker who buys it elsewhere, or perhaps you buy the actual Gold and store it, Etc. So where is it all held if not by You? Do You get paper? How do you track it? Do you trust who has it stored for you or the trail that follows after/before You? Just curious…
A day about which IDGAH
= gold 3.900$
Can you imagine 50+ years gold was officially valued as 35$ per ounce in USA.
and now IT IS DAILY UP RANGE.. 40*50$
w/in year or two IT WILL BE 100 200 $ each day..
alx
There isn’t much talk about the underground economy here. The underground/laundering economy is doing great. Literally nothing is regulated anymore by the Feds. This is why inflation keeps staying high. We have a money launderer for President. Black money is also pouring into the country through bit coin I am pretty sure every Republican is now owned by black money. through various sources. This is why they stopped governing. The same thing happen to the UK court system once judges started getting owned by Russian oligarchs.
This is not an R vs D issue.
Until you take a bipartisan view of this issue, and understand that both parties are corrupted by the underground economy, (sometimes by the same parts, sometimes by different parts), you’re missing well over half of the story.
Remember the first half or so of 2025. This is the best things will be until 2032. Hear me today, understand me tomorrow and believe me later.
LOL this market since April is the best most easily traded bull market I have ever seen, by far. I’m gonna need a down 10% day to even check my assumptions with the extra gains already this year.
“There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.”
― John Adams 1826
“There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by the sword. The other is by a monopoly paradigm concept for the creation and distribution of all new money known as Debt Only.”
The Window Cleaner of the Mind
Plenty of historical facts showing strategic monetary gifting being the solution to sticky problems like greenbacks being the reason why the North won the civil war and stimulus checks preventing the Finance caused 2008 recession becoming a depression.
Think a new thought. It won’t kill you.
The North won the war because it had a larger population and the better industrial base.
All the South had was better military leadership.
Available and strategically distributed money is what makes things happen in the temporal universe. Its the most basic tool and factor in getting things done, and in the case of war the most important factor.
Despite some notable exceptions, the median Southern military leadership wasn’t so good either.
Just wondering. Why don’t the people who do this polling give us consumer sentiment across income levels?
I bet that would be eye opening.
Also, did everyone see where Trump withdrew Antoni’s nomination to run the BLS?
This trend seems likely to continue. Hopefully it (plus some other Trump dysfunctions) will be enough for the Republicans too lose control of the House and/or the Senate. Not that I like the Democrats either, but some kind of balance would be desireable.
Dems have a better chance in the House. At least if they won maybe we’d be done with the stupid censorship bills that say any criticism of Israel is antisemitism. Maybe.
But Americans do have the freedom to walk around a flag and chant “home of the brave, land of the free”. And they can criticize less important countries. I mean that should count for something.
Marie Antoinette: Let them eat shouting and preening and self-satisfaction and performative displays of “warrior ethos.” That always wins wars, as it did for Germany and Japan, right? Pretend the revalued (devalued) populations and environmental issues simply do not exist. Live in a fevered dream, a digitized hall of mirrors. Tout single assets and blinkered slogans as the solution (actually just sales gambits to lure in more punters).
They’ll add “or Trump” to Israel in a month or so
Elections with an option may be over. With the republicans gerrymandering at trumps request because his policies are unpopular. At some point even if say 25 percent of the republican voter flip it wont matter.
Even if they lose he will call fraud. He has the courts and the military to back him up.
Or he could start a war
Its gonna get ugly.
Dont believe me. Consider this. Hes worried about getting convicted when he loses power. Just like bibi.
You dont construct a ball room unless you plan to be around to enjoy it.
“Voting for Kodos” got us into this mess. It will not get us out of it.
The price of gold is yelling loudly that people worldwide are concerned.
Central banks are especially concerned and are printing their currencies and converting them to gold. This is forcing the price of gold higher and it is increasing the value of gold reserves and liquidity dramatically.
Mish,
Could you touch on the amount of liquidity being provided by stock market and gold market spending?
More specifically, I have read that the value of foreign gold reserves now exceeds the value of US Treasuries held by foreign nations.
What does this do to the “Wealth Effect”of those nations as their currencies may be appreciating and the gold reserves may allow them to be more comfortable increasing liquidity.
ALL nations of the world are heavily indebted. Higher asset prices is only encouraging them all to issue even more debt obligations instead of balancing their budgets. Governments mainly own gold and reserve currencies invested in bonds. The public own mostly stocks. Even people on the other side of the planet who can’t even speak English, are trading NASDAQ and MAG7 stocks on their phone apps. Of course spending lots more thanks to the money they’re making.
But spending more than they have.
Problem?
Not so far.
Since 2023.
Two years or so…
It will continue until the U.S. revalues, and sells off, to pay off some debt. Then we sit tight again.
I have been researching the global gold market and reading some of the historical documents by the likes of Connely, Triffin & Machlup. I want to make up my own mind if the present construct of the US dollar hegemony will remain valid in a world of modern crypto currencies? Will the dollar, crypto and gold compete for the worlds belief in their value as money?
Money is nothing more than a storage unit of wealth and buying power.
What do you mean by “Sells off, to pay some debt” ???
GFC…
GOLD
Was sold along with everything else because investors, (stupidly), wanted greenbacks above all other stores of value.
Truth is often stranger than fiction.
We hold more Gold than anyone by far. We have lots of debt right now. We can sell at the high and pay off a lot of debt with the Massive Cash we will get for the Gold.
We will still hold far more Gold than the rest of the Planet, but have a better balance sheet as well. Why wouldn’t we? We are being aligned to do so right now…
History as a guide:
1970 = $35
2000 = $267
2015 = $1,065
2022 = $1,632
My Guess is 2026 = $2,800?
Why not just have the federal government revalue gold at $30 trillion per ounce, and pay off its own debt to itself? Then set it back to market rates immediately of course.
The Market sets the price of Gold. We are not revaluing the gold price, but rather updating the value of our existing holdings of Our Gold.
I hear China is buying very large quantities. Or is it old news?
China has bought and mined many ounces and we are unsure of its actual reserves. Russia, Argentina, Canada, Australia, Brazil and a host of other countries and also mine tons of the stuff.
Add to the consumer gloom the treasury announcing another debt weekly auction of $0.267 trillion, up a little from last week’s Tuesday announcement. As Senator Barry Goldwater said, pretty soon we are going to be talking about real money. Starting to smell like an economic slow-motion wreck is about to happen rapidly very soon. If/when that happens, the current squabble over keeping the government funded is going to be noise in the scheme of things to come.
Everett McKinley Dirksen
That’s what I thought.
“A billion here, a billion there… “
About a month ago, the Treasury was reporting that the debt will rise to about $38.6T before the end of the CY.
Current debt as of September 30 is $37,637,553,494,935.61, so in the last 3 months of the calendar year we are forecasted to get another trillion dollars of debt. A linear extrapolation would be a $4 trillion deficit for fiscal 2026. Guess that big beautiful bill and the tariffs are doing right by the American citizen, not!
Debt to the Penny | U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data
The despair started well before Trump took office. Social behavior is more like a recession than an economic expansion.
Socially Bifurcated.
K-shaped recovery means only the rich see recovery, the rest are mired down.
Almost everyone living in IL, CA and NY should be worried.
3 of the Top 4 indebted States, with no way to pay it off, they should be very worried.
And these are three of the most gun restricted states in the union, so when things head south, the criminals in those states are going to be running the show in about 30 days.
> the criminals in those states are going to be running the show in about 30 days.
LOL. They already do.
Criminals run the whole damn country. The ones in the street are bad enough. But the ones in office are worse. And the ones who fund their campaigns are worse still.
Hadn’t given that much thought, but you are most certainly onto something. Not Venezuela like, but they do run rampant now, in many States.
My guess is they are planning this activity for when it occurs. Fewer cops, fewer services, and fewer ways to escape if you will…
West of I-39 and south of IL-17 mostly ok. Caught a ‘public service’ show on WXRT (old car, no phone) at dawn last Sunday. 3 guys who sounded like they were from Wicker Park, Oldtown and Boystown were critiquing the 4 prospective R gubernatorial candidates to run against Pritzker. They said that none of them could ever win over the affluent white female suburban (Chicago) voters. I’d have to agree with them. “In this house …” colorful yard signs and all that. Both Rauner and JB teamed up to take down Ives 2 elections ago.
IL. Not NY or CA. Why ? NY and CA are also the highest equity and money from investment income states. NY also has the money center banks. There’s also more black money in California as so much money has entered CA from China, India, Russia and elsewhere. No one from those places really wants to go back.Many of them own real estate here already as that’s how they laundered their money. Likewise for NYC.
I know someone in SoCal that manages nurses. Has had several quit and leave the area in the last couple months because they just cant afford to live there.
Out of over 200 Countries indebted, the State of CA. Would rank in the Top 25 COUNTRIES in debt…
California would rank in the top 25 countries in just about anything – good or bad. 40 million people with per capita GDP of ~ $107,000.
I could agree with that possibility, but the reality right now, is that CA. Is in Top Country Levels of Debt, and they are a State! Can’t Print, can’t Pay it back. This is quite bad…
we here in the midwest are very worried
https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/local/missouri-fungal-disease-wreaking-havoc-on-soybeans-in-illinois-red-crown-rot/63-3741e8ff-710b-4256-b8c2-86d466259f39
Things that were absurdly expensive remain absurdly expensive, and new things are becoming expensive. Frog boiling situation- maybe the frogs are noticing it’s getting a bit warm.