Next question: what do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?

Here is a chart showing all the Most Important Problems as ranked by a Gallup Poll Survey in May 2023. The first one was chosen as the most important problem facing the United States today was the Government. The second one they claimed was the economy.

The top two Important Problems were most interesting to me. Eight out of Ten people are dissatisfied with their life in the United States. And most of them are pointing to the government and the economy. You’re probably wondering and grappling with new things that bother you, like high-interest rates, higher inflation, and recession. It is enough to make people feel they have no control over the situation. But what if it’s a signal and a sign that you feel like you lack control of your own economy?

Gallup poll has been doing surveys since 1979. As professional money managers, these Gallup polls are vital for us because we call them sentiment indicators, which is the sentiment of investors as a whole, and we do pay attention to these.

Economic Ratings Steady at Lower Level Americans’ confidence in the U.S. economy also remains depressed, with Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index essentially unchanged at -43 in May after dropping in April.

Chart: Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index (Recent Trend)

The economic confidence index right now lies at a whopping minus 43. That is better than the confidence in this index one year ago, last summer, which was as low as minus 60. And, of course, the interest rates began to bump up, and the Federal Reserve increased the interest rates aggressively overnight. And we were all looking at the possibility of a swift recession. Well, we have yet to have that swift recession. In fact, there may be a possibility for a soft landing, but right now, we have a sentiment indicator, which is an economic confidence index of minus (-) 43.

Let me put that into perspective.

The lowest that Gallup has gotten in the sentiment indicator was back in 2008 when the Confidence index got as low as minus 75. And the highest was in 1999 during the Dot Com Bubble when everybody was euphoric about the potential and promise they felt the internet would have for us. And, of course, it has. But right now, within the minus 43 indicator, we’re all feeling nervous.

What can we do about it? Well, what we can do about it is bring our attention back to ourselves.  Focus your attention where it belongs, which is on your own economy.  And what are you doing to stabilize your own economy and focus on what you can do to make sure that you are making the right decisions at the right time with the correct information so that you will overcome these bumps and be able to grow your investments over time and truly build wealth over time? Would that be good for you? Would you be interested in that? Is that something that you are interested in?

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