Lack of Confidence

Professional economists are shocked -- shocked -- that consumer confidence has dipped to its lowest level in a decade. They shouldn't be.

Week after week of terror alerts coupled with a drumbeat for a war that has yet to be clearly defined tend to darken the outlook of the homefolks. For months -- years? -- the mantra has been that rock-bottom interest rates have put cash in the pockets of consumers, who then have gone out and kept a feeble economy inching along.

Well, boys and girls, now what?