Consumer confidence in the US fell to a record low in the US in December signalling that the economy has a long way to go before the economy starts to improve. Historically an upswing in consumer confidence has lead general economic revival by about twelve months.

Even though retailers are slashing prices and oil prices have fallen by over 70% from their peak, consumers are becoming increasingly worried about the outlook for their jobs and incomes.

According to the Conference Board, respondents saying jobs were "hard to get" was 42% in December - up by five percentage points from November, whilst those claiming jobs were "plentiful" dropped to 6.2% from 8.7%.

The level of consumers expecting increased incomes fell to 12.7% in December down from 13.1% in November.

Economic realities have started to bite, forcing consumers to accept the realities that although prices are falling, without a job or with falling incomes lower prices will make little difference.

An upswing in the US economy will lead the upswing in the world economy, it seems like this is still some way off.

With the globe entering recession many jobs are going to be cut across the whole world over the next 12 months and perhaps beyond.

Just this week major companies around the globe announced over 80,000 job cuts. Firms in the US are shedding jobs at a rapid pace, UK unemployment is expected to double over the next year and European unemployment, which had been falling sharply in previous years has begun to increase again.

These job losses are not only going to be in the financial sector, although there will be a lot of job losses in this sector. Citigroup alone is expecting to reduce headcounts by 75,000. However, jobs are being lost across the board in construction, retail, business services, manufacturing etc. The only place that employees can feel fairly confident of job security is in the public sector, however, I wouldn't be complacent anywhere!

Things are looking fairly bleak at the moment as we are currently in the heart of the storm. I'm not saying that the storm is not going to get worse but sometimes when you are in a downturn it seems like it will never end.