Bad and getting worse...

At 25, February's consumer confidence reading in the US is the lowest recorded since the inception of the index in 1967.

As bad as things are, consumers only expect them to get worse. Almost half (47%) of people surveyed expect fewer jobs over the next six months; that's up ten percentage points from January's read. Over two-fifths of those surveyed expect business conditions to deteriorate over the next six months, up from last month when 31% expected conditions to worsen.