that s health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. now to our three big money headlines. sky-high confidence. black thursday. and counting the beans. joining me now, hitha prabhakar a retail and economy analyst. good morning, this brand-new survey shows consumer confidence at its highest since july, 2007. what s that say about the growth of the economy? well, alex, economists still say that the economy is growing at a slower rate. but look at these numbers. consumer confidence hits at 84.9. that s up from 82.9 which economists were expecting it to go to. some of the reasons why really has to do with the unemployment rate falling. it is, you know, kind of coming down, and also gas prices falling as well as home values prices. those are coming down, as well. okay, what about walmart s black friday frenzy in the shopping world? that s arriving early. what s different this year? walmart to the rescue. they re going to save us from all of us that don t want to spend any time with our famil
thursday, and counting the beans our three big money headlines. joining me now a retail and economy analyst and with a welcome back to you. good to see you, alex. let s talk about this brand-new survey which show that is consumer confidence is at its highest since july 2007. what s this telling you about the growth of the economy? the economists i ve spoken to said that the economy is at the slow growth pace. but you wouldn t think it from the look at this consumer sentiment index here. it came in at 84.9. and economists were expecting it to come in at 82.9. some of the reasons why, the consumers are feeling better about the unemployment rate. gasoline prices are starting to come down. home values are starting to rise. so they re feeling better about that. but analysts are saying that because of this fiscal cliff they might start to feel a little bit jittery. i like to look at the consumer expectation index, which really projects out how that consumer is going to feel in six mont
and this, when the average top marginal tax rate was 84.9%. now, compare this with the period from 1987 to the year 2010, when the average tax rate was just 36.4%. the economy grew at a far less robust rate of just 2.9%. we keep being told that mr. romney s been rehearsing his zingers. but let s hope that he s not going to use that line from president clinton, it s the economy, stupid, because the easiest response to that is, we know who s stupid when it comes to the economy. thanks so much for watching. thank you to the university of denver for hosting us. and to all of you watching at home. my colleague, chris mathews is also here in denver. he picks things up with hardball.
little bit below pittsburgh. very low foreclosure rates, that s what gets louisville toward the top of that list. houston, texas, this is an area we ve been talking about a lot. a lot of texas is actually doing very well. 73.2, the issue there is it has strong industry and energy-related jobs. people are moving to houston and austin and dallas and places like that. so, you re seeing the possibility of housing price indexes. let s take you to the minneapolis/st. paul area. very low unemployment in some of the states around here. that brings it to a score of 84.9, you can see just below pittsburgh. and finally i want to show you indianapolis, a score of 95.7 on the index. this is homes are quite affordable right now. there s housing that is accessible to a lot of families who have sort of a median income. a lot of people, you don t have to be very rich to get a nice house in indianapolis. what if you don t live in one of those top markets? well, you might have a problem, particularly i