Public Sentiment on the Economy

Over at The Mess That Greenspan Made, Tim Iacono has a post about public sentiment concerning the economy. I've read TMTGM for a while now and anyone who reads this blog knows that I'm totally envious that he snagged that name. On the other hand, Tim is relentlessly negative about the economy and I suspect he will be surprised by how powerful the monetary medecine now being applied will be for the economy.

This post concerns a Washington Post/ABC poll about the economy and the public's perception of same:

Nine in 10 Americans now give the economy a negative rating, with a majority saying it is in "poor" shape, the most to say so in more than 15 years. And the sense that things are bad has spread swiftly. The percentage who hold a negative view of the economy is up 33 points over the past year, and the percentage who rate the economy "poor" has increased 13 points in the past two months. That is the quickest 60-day decline since The Post and ABC started asking the question, in 1985.

Tim, of course, takes this to be a negative and he may be right, but I take it more as a contrarian type signal. If 90% are negative, how much worse could sentiment get? Anyway, like Tim, I also think that the long term prospects for our economy are pretty dire absent some major policy changes, but I am not nearly as negative in the short term. I suspect Tim will have to wait until around 2010 for the real meltdown he expects.