At yesterday’s Mt Pleasant Rotary Club meeting I overheard my lunch neighbor tell someone he and his business are feeling better about the economy. He has noticed a slow but steady increase in shoppers, shopping not related to tourist season in the Low Country.
This is very very new territory for our government. This is a very very problematic period in our history. There is no supplied set-up documentation for him to follow. He has clearly surrounded himself with brillant minds, clearly weighed his options and clearly moved us in what appears to be an intelligent direction with calm and confidence.
And it is that calm and confidence which I believe has resulted in increasing numbers of shoppers coming into my lunch neighbor’s store.
Bloomberg News says consumer confidence in the U.S. jumped by the most since 2005 this month as stocks rallied, mortgage rates dropped and Americans anticipated more jobs would become available.
“There certainly is starting to be a shift here, where the data is either less bad or even starting to improve,” Michael Darda, chief economist at MKM Partners LP in New York, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. While “we certainly haven’t turned the corner yet” the economy “could bottom out between June and October of this year and then start” growing.
The gain in confidence raises the odds that recent gains in consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of the economy, will be sustained.
Gooden + Faircloth’s real estate business has in the past month also seen a welcome uptick and movement toward the light. Like our president, let us remain calm and confident that better days are ahead for Mt Pleasant and America.
I found myself in the Mt. Pleasant Real Estate business in 2008, in the depths of the national real estate ‘depression’. Real estate prices were falling, interest rates were falling, employment rates were falling and consumer confidence was falling. And here we were, rising and making it despite the gloom. My top rated Mt Pleasant restaurant Crave Kitchen, opened a year prior, was also doing very well.
Weeks before they won the NCAA National Championship, my friend bought a basketball autographed by the University of North Carolina basketball team. He paid $ 160. This is the team that went on to become the most successful college basketball team in the world, at least for the 08/09 season.
Wakendaw offers gorgeous, huge trees, several beautiful lakes, lots of surprising little gifts from nature, young and old strolling tranquil streets and a sense of true neighborliness.
