Monday, July 20, 2009

Obama's top economic adviser uses google searches as indicator of consumer confidence

The Obama administration is grasping at straws trying to find find positive spin for their bumbling of the economy. Larry Summers, Obama's top economic adviser, claims that consumer confidence is up because less people are searching for "economic depression" on google. Only problem is that there are more news stories referencing economic depression than normal. Plus google searches for "economic recession" is still pretty high.

Are google searches good indicators of consumer confidence? Politico

Of all the statistics pouring into the White House every day, top economic adviser Larry Summers highlighted one Friday to make his case that the economic free-fall has ended.

The number of people searching for the term “economic depression” on Google is down to normal levels, Summers said.

Searches for the term were up four-fold when the recession deepened in the earlier part of the year, and the recent shift goes to show consumer confidence is higher, Summers told the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

No comments: