Consumer Confidence Falls Sharply in August

On top of everything else, we need to keep in mind that the economy is tanking. The politicians (including the presidential candidates) are not warning us of the impending crisis we will face in the months and years to come, due primarily to a crashing real estate market. And the problem won't go away as long as we have no leadership from the top:

Softening economic conditions and volatility in financial markets led to a sharp decline in U.S. consumer confidence in August, the Conference Board said Tuesday.

The consumer confidence index fell to 105.0 in August from a revised 111.9 in July, which was a cyclical high, the private economic research group said.

This is the lowest level of confidence since August 2006 and the biggest drop since the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in September 2005.

Although Bush would point out that the poverty rate is down:

The nation's poverty rate dropped last year, the first significant decline since President Bush took office.

The Census Bureau reported Tuesday that 36.5 million Americans, or 12.3 percent were living in poverty last year. That's down from 12.6 percent in 2005.

But then, I guess, I would counter that the number of uninsured is up:

The number of Americans without health insurance rose last year from 44.8 million, or 15.3% of the population, to 47 million, or 15.8%, the Census Bureau reported today.

It is totally unacceptable that children, especially, go without health insurance:

Most of the problem with health insurance were traceable to the continued erosion of employer-based healthcare coverage. The percentage of people covered by employer plans decreased to 59.7% of the population in 2006, down from 60.2% in 2005.

Of particular concern, the number of uninsured children rose for the second year in a row, after a long period in which it had been steadily declining, thanks to the expansion of government health coverage. More than 600,000 children joined the ranks of the uninsured in 2006, a change that the Census Bureau called statistically significant.