This is CBSi in the world. I'm John Bachelor. The American economy hesitating right now watching the Federal Reserve, yes, watching the election yes, and watching the consumer settlement.

I welcome Gene Marks, a small business columnist for the Guardian newspaper, UK and US Edition,

as well as our hometown newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquire, to look at the consumer settlement and ask are we at this point

following off from our very good performance in 23 are we continuing to see the money come in from the federal

government and that gives us spending cash? Are we looking at the Federal

Reserve responding to what appears to be recessionary conditions

among parts of the population but then other parts of the population look to be

doing very well.

Gene a very good evening to you.

The consumer sentiment, how do you interpret the seven month low?

What does this tell us about where we are?

Good evening to you.

Hi, John.

Yeah, this is the University of Michigan's Consumer Sensimate Index.

It is one of these index is that economists tend to follow more so than even the conference

boards of Consumer Sensimate Index.

It is, it's just, it is just anecdotally it just a little bit more

detailed and better in its analysis and has been around for quite a long time anyway.

So yeah, the sentiment is now down for the seventh month, you know, it is, it is, continues

to drop it is at levels that we last saw near the end of the pandemic and

it is like approaching levels that we saw during the last financial crisis as well

which is not good.

...