The Recovery (finally) Trickling Down

My pal Peter Boockvar spotted an interesting and positive nugget in today’s Consumer Confidence report for the month of July, emphasis mine…

The Conference Board’s measure of consumer confidence for July rose to 90.9 from 86.4, well above expectations of 85.4 and is at the best level since October ’07. The Present Situation rose 2 pts and the Expectations component was up by 6.3 pts. A key driver in the confidence improvement was question of whether jobs were Plentiful and that index rose 1.3 pts to the highest since May ’08. Those that said jobs were Hard To Get was unchanged but at the lowest since July ’08. Expectations for a pick up in income growth rose .6 pts to 17.3 but while it was 18 in May, it’s above the year ago level of 15.7. Positively within the data, almost all of the improvement in confidence came from those households that make under $75,000.

Josh here – Is it finally happening? Are we on the other side of Peak Piketty? What will the naysayers trot out as proof against the recovery when they no longer can hold up the non-participation of the poors, as if they actually give a sh*t about them?

In case you’ve lost track, the “policy bear” argument has morphed from:

1. There won’t be a recovery
2. Okay, there will be a recovery but it’s temporary, when the taper starts it’s over
3. Okay, maybe the recovery can survive the taper but it’s not real because only the 1 Percent are seeing improving conditions

What will they say now?

Source:

Peter Boockvar
Managing Director and Chief Market Analyst
The Lindsey Group LLC