Page 13 - Consumer Optimism News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

You see trouble brewing again in europe. and other parts of the world. so it's not just us. we're all in the quick sand. >> michelle? >> well, i mean, i think so before gilt i was at citigroup and do market research on surveys. they don't like uncertainty and reading headlines of uncertainty. i think that's been the plague here is that every time we seem to have something moving in the right direction. we set ourselves back. and a lot of it is caused by washington. so, i mean, i feel like when you look at underlying rates, consumer optimism, generally has been a bit better, certainly than it w...

>> okay. bill, so it was your survey or the nfib survey that showed that pessimism. we had you guys for a little while, but now you've gone back to where it was. what do you think will turn people's attitudes around, get them more optimistic again? >> well, i think we have to get consumers to be a little more optimistic. you notice the consumer optimism went into the tank as well last month, so if they're not spending it, of course, there's not much we can do. we'd be happy to hire a few more million people if we just had customers to take care of and that's really not the case. so we've got a...

What do you think will turn people's attitudes around, get them more optimistic again? >> well, i think we have to get consumers to be a little more optimistic. you notice the consumer optimism went into the tank, as well, last month. so if they're not spending, then, of course, there's not much we can do. we would be happy to hire a few million more people if we had customers to take care of, and that's not the case. so we've got a very dour outlook for how the economy is going to look. in fact, the november reading was the 10th lowest in our 37 years of surveying, our 350,000 members. so we ...