Global Economic Confidence Trends: Consumer confidence has collapsed all around the world this year, nearly matching the pace and magnitude of the drops seen during the global financial crisis and pandemic panic.

We have never seen consumer confidence collapse to this degree without taking business confidence down with it (and a subsequent downturn/crisis taking hold).

Indeed, pattern-recognizers might notice that consumer confidence was the first to collapse in 2008, only to be followed by business confidence shortly after.

Of particular intrigue is that the gap between Consumer confidence vs Business confidence reached a record level in July — eclipsing the previous record set in June 2008. The concern is that business confidence now “catches down”.

While these are all “just surveys”, the message is clear and consistent: people are saying that things are bad. This is actually in line with what the leading indicators are pointing to in terms of the global growth outlook, and frankly in line with the economic logic and intuition of how these things normally play out.

An unusual cycle, yes, but with many familiarities…

Key point: Consumer confidence has collapsed.

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