Posted by
m0t0r1zed on Tuesday, November 11, 2008 7:27:45 AM
Judge for yourself.
I think opinion of gov't economic policy tracks similarly together with consumer sentiment (more or less).
So ... if you want to get people feeling better about the economy and gov't economic policies, low gas prices might be a good start. You're not going to get the economy going again unless you improve confidence and get people spending. You also have to wonder about the psychological effect it had on businesses.
Googled around and found this guy had the same idea.
This guy tried something similar earlier, but gas prices weren't high enough yet to matter, so he found no correlation.
meh. it's neat, so just threw it out there. :p
edit: also looked at chart 10 (pos/neg economic news that people hear) added to the above chart (i don't have chart posted). kinda interesting. plus, how do you factor in the major events like 2000 election, recession (march-november 2001), enron, 9-11, afghanistan, iraq, 2004 election, katrina, etc. hmm.