Consumer Confidence

HT to Misch:

The Conference Board’s confidence index slumped to 46, below the lowest forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of economists, from 56.5 in January, a report from the New York- based private research group showed today. A separate report showed home prices rose for a seventh month.Economists forecast the confidence index would decrease to 55 from a previously reported 55.9 January reading, according to the median of 68 projections in the Bloomberg survey. Estimates ranged from 50.9 to 59.The Conference Board’s measure of present conditions decreased to 19.4, the lowest since February 1983, from 25.2.The share of consumers who said jobs are plentiful fell to 3.6 percent from 4.4 percent, according to the Conference Board. The proportion of people who said jobs are hard to get increased to 47.7 percent from 46.5 percent.The gauge of expectations for the next six months decreased to 63.8, the lowest since July 2009, from 77.3 the prior month.The proportion of people who expect their incomes to increase over the next six months declined to 9.5 percent from 11 percent. The share expecting more jobs in the next six months fell to 13.4 percent from 15.8 percent.

This does not bode well for a quick recovery if 70% of our economy is based on consumer spending...

Grace & Peace

PLW

Weekend Notes

Whew! It seems like every weekend is an absolute whirlwind these days.

Saturday, Hunter played some stellar basketball and their team ended up 4th for the weekend. He has improved a great deal this year and as long as he's open to learning, he'll be a fun guy to watch on the court.

Same with his little brother, Jalen. His season ended on Saturday where he played fairly well and received a medal for his efforts. He still continues to beat me in lightning.

Saturday afternoon we spent time at Heidi's folks for Valentine's Day. We had pink mashed potatoes, ham, pink juice, red jello, pink bread (you get the idea) and it was fabulous. I spent most of the time on the couch working on a crossword puzzle, resting my back, and watching the Olympics.

Sunday church was AWESOME where we witnessed 10 people being baptized. We had an open invitation as well and had one gentlemen come forward and give his testimony about being in prison for 10 years. He was let out last week and had converted from the Muslim faith to Christianity while in prison and wanted to be baptized. Pretty amazing testimony.

In the evening, we had Hoops Church where we continue to meet more guys and enjoy playing hoops and testifying about God's grace.

Lastly, today is Heidi's birthday (wife of 15 years)! I can't imagine living life and serving the Lord without her support, love, and encouragement. It certainly, like Christ's love, is much more than I deserve. Love you, Sweets.

Grace & Peace,

PLW

Movies in Review

So, the last couple of days as the kids have had a few days off from school, we have watched some crazy cool movies.

Avatar 3D: If you haven't seen this movie yet, you will have missed one of the better movies of the year. The graphics and the way in which they combined the fiction with the real was pretty wicked. If you can overlook the blatant Hollywood anti-Christian bias portrayed in everything out of Hollywood these days, its a brilliant movie.

Percy Jackson & The Lightening Thief: Having forced my kids to read the book before the movie came out, I have to say I was a bit disappointed. They left out a great deal and changed the story line for the sake of time. They missed a good opportunity. My kids really loved the book, but didn't think the movie lived up to their expectations. Some nice cameos, though, by Pierce Brosnan, Rosario Dawson, Uma Thurman and Sean Bean (Boromir of LOTR).

UP: Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe this was Pixar's first release of a movie now owned by Disney. UP was fantastic (even though this has been out in theatres for quite awhile). I thought it brought home the reality of life (loss of loved ones) but instilled the idea that dreams should be chased and not set aside - but also kept in check in the context of life. The ideas of the 'goony bird' and giving voice to animals (like voices to cars, toys, etc.) was brilliant. Olivia literally yelled with joy as they escaped the clutches of the evil villain (not to give it away).

Grace & Peace

PLW

Credit Crisis (Video)

Here is an older video depicting the credit crisis. It's a little long but I really think its the reality of the situation we have ourselves in...

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.