by Calculated Risk on 9/16/2011 05:27:00 PM

Most of this article and poll is on politics, but this is a key point ...

From McClatchy Newspapers: Congress puts on smiley face in bid to curry public favor

Republican pollster Bill McInturff found that public disgust with the summer debt-ceiling debacle had eroded confidence in the economy and the federal government profoundly, on a scale similar to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and Hurricane Katrina.

This is the argument I've been making - that the sharp decline in confidence might have been event driven and confidence could bounce back in a couple of months - to the already low levels before the debt ceiling nonsense. It usually takes 2 to 4 months to bounce back from an event driven decline in confidence, so maybe next month ...