The Federal Reserve pushed interest rates all the way to the floor, which is something that never would happen in a true free market economy, and they pumped trillions of fresh dollars that they literally created out of thin air into the financial system.  Meanwhile, our politicians in Washington were engaging in the greatest debt binge that the world has ever seen.  All of this reckless manipulation seemed to work for a while, but many of us warned that it would inevitably create a major inflation crisis, and that is precisely what happened.  So now the Fed is aggressively hiking interest rates in a desperate attempt to tame the inflation monster that they helped to create, and higher rates are absolutely crushing economic activity.

At this point, most Americans understand that something has seriously gone wrong, and this is pushing consumer confidence lower.

On Tuesday, we learned that consumer confidence has now fallen for two straight months to start 2023…

U.S. consumer confidence unexpectedly fell for the second straight month in February as Americans' outlook on the economy tumbled further, showing how persistent inflation is weighing on shoppers amid looming recession fears.

The Conference Board's latest Consumer Confidence Index released Tuesday declined to 102.9 for this month, slipping from 106.0 in January — which was revised lower. Economists polled by Refinitiv had expected February's index to tick up to 108.5.