declining through the next year. the s&p 500 price index fell 1% in october from september. the biggest drop was in atlanta where prices fell almost 3%. a new survey shows an unexpected drop in consumer confidence despite reports that people spent more this holiday season. the conference board said the index fell to 52.5. in a healthy economy the index is about 90. consumer spending accounts for about 70% of the economy. among the first announcements president obama is expected to make when he returns from his 11-day working vacation in hawaii is his choice for a new top economic adviser. mike viqueira is traveling with the president and joins us from honolulu. who is in the front-runner s slot? there s a lot of speculation out there. the top adviser to the president s economic council,
i want to give you a big picture. let me take you back to 1973 and give you a sense of what our energy consumption looked like back in 1973. basically a pie of where we got our energy from. back then, more than half of our energy came from oil. almost a quarter came from coal. about 19% from gas and then if you look over there, nuclear, hyd hydro, electric from water and other were altogether less than 5% of our energy. let s take it to 2009, the latest year for which we have complete statistics. we ve gone from 52.5% dependence on oil to 37.2%. natural gas has increased to 24.2%. coal done from 22.6% to 19%. nuclear was 1.3%.
disaster, it s being hit by a disaster while other and bigger disasters unfold. this is nashville. and if you ve heard nothing except the gulf and times square and arizona, rains in middle tennessee have devastated the area. 22 dead in tennessee and adjoining states. the cumberland river cresting at 52.5 feet. the major symbols of nashville flooded out of the opryland hotel under ten feet and rising. the country music hall of fame in similar shape. the football stadium inundated up to the first row of seats. the hockey arena, the event level below ground level, in danger. the town of bellview near a river but never thought of as a prospect for catastrophic flooding, under water for most homeowners, never thought of buying flood insurance. the red cross opened shelters across tennessee. we cannot give those displaced or attention this day does not mean we cannot give them our help.
disaster while other and bigger disasters unfold. this is nashville. and if you ve heard nothing except the gulf and time square and arizona, rains in middle tennessee have devastated the area. 22 dead in tennessee and adjoining states. the cumberland river cresting at 52.5 feet. the major symbols of nashville flooded out of the opryland hotel under ten feet and rising. the hall of fame in similar shape. the football stadium inundated up to the first row of seats. the hockey arena, the event level below ground level, in danger. the town of bellview near a river but never thought of as flooding. most homeowners never thought of buying flood insurance. we cannot give those displaced or attention this day does not mean we cannot give them our help. if you text red cross to 909999, $10 will be donated towards
christians, but also union members whose contracts gave them good friday off. but not the spring holiday. the city quickly reinstated good friday and called the name change an error. bret: consumer confidence is increasing slightly after a plunge in february. fox business network correspondent gerri willis has a road to recovery report on a better than expected rebound. good news. consumers are more confident, according to the conference board s march survey of 5,000 americans that index jumped to 52.5 from february s 46.4 reading. confidence matters because consumers are responsible for two thirds of the nation s economic activity. happy consumers typically mean good economic times. what we have seen so far in the first quarter of the year is that consumer spending seems to be picking up. people are opening their wallets a bit more than they were a year ago. while the rebound is good, it still doesn t come anywhere