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Harry S Truman, the 33rd President of the United States, once said it was a recession when your neighbour lost his job, a depression when you lost yours. Right now, Indians are twiddling their thumbs in anticipation of the first.
In the last two rounds of the Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey, both India and the world witnessed dips in confidence. Now in the face of the ever-worsening economic environment, marked by rising inflation and interest rates, the subprime and credit crises, and fickle stock markets, shoulders have begun to droop in India and abroad.
According to the latest round of the Nielsen Global Consumer Confidence Survey, the consumer confidence in India fell 11 points to 122, the lowest level in the last five rounds of the survey. Similarly, the overall global consumer confidence fell six points to 88 -- the steepest fall the index has registered in three years.
Ironically, the three most optimistic nations in the last survey -- Norway, India, and Denmark, in that order -- are now seven points down on an average. Denmark has even ceded its spot to Indonesia.
More importantly, though, the consumer confidence tumbled in as many as 39 countries in the past six months, with New Zealand, the US and Latvia suffering the most. Worse, of the 39 countries, 15 witnessed double-digit drops.
The only bright spot this time was Taiwan, which went against the grain and posted a 14-point increase in consumer confidence, thanks to Ma Ying-Jeou's thumping victory in the elections. The other countries that show marginal increases in the index -- 1-5 per cent -- are the Netherlands, Russia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Brazil and Belgium.
No prizes for guessing which country was hurt the most. The index in the US, grappling with the subprime crisis and other problems, nosedived 17 points.
Europe followed with a six-point fall. Consumer confidence fell three points in the Asia Pacific and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa and two points in Latin America.
So disillusioned are the Americans that they don't expect things to improve any time soon. Sixty-six per cent of them have a pessimistic view of the local job prospects over the next 12 months. Uncle Sam was nowhere on the list of countries that are pessimistic about local jobs in the next 12 months six months ago.
But guess who was and still is? Here's a hint -- the world's second-largest economy. In the second spot on the list, Japan had 88 per cent of its Internet users negative on the local job prospects, up from 83 per cent last time.
And they are not particularly upbeat about their personal finances over the next 12 months. In the last round of the survey, Japan topped the list of the most pessimistic nations with regard to personal finances.
India, though, remains buoyant on the personal finances front -- jointly leading the pack of the most optimistic nations along with Denmark and Indonesia. And what are the Indians going to do with the money?
Five per cent said it was an excellent time to buy the things they wanted and 40 per cent said it was a good time to do that. That said, these numbers, too, have fallen -- almost correspondingly to the drop in the consumer confidence index. Clearly, we've lost some of our sheen.
The skyrocketing inflation hasn't helped India's cause. Indians have always been hesitant to spend and now, with commodity prices on a high, the purse strings are only going to get tighter.
Here are the numbers to support that: the expenditure on new technology dipped one point, spending on home improvements and decorating slipped three points, and spending on clothes stayed flat.
Not much has changed with the pessimistic lot in Europe. Six months ago, six of the least optimistic were from Europe; this time there are seven. Latvia, Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Turkey are all well below the global average of 88. Meanwhile, woebegone Japan has displaced South Korea to become the most pessimistic nation.
