Bloomberg news reports that Consumer Confidence Rises to Highest Level in Two Years Amid U.S. Recovery:

Confidence among U.S. consumers rose in June to the highest level since January 2008, indicating the decline in stock prices prompted by the European debt crisis has failed to weigh on sentiment.

…

“Spending growth will continue to be decent,” said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co., who correctly forecast the index level. “It won’t be booming but it won’t be flat or declining.”

Given our recent musings on home sales, home price declines, unemployment and credit destruction, we just don’t see “decent” spending growth in the near future. But that’s just us. If you feel like going with Mr. Feroli on this, than that’s your prerogative. There’s just nothing that we’re seeing that gives us a good feeling about our economy going forward.

In regards to the uptick in consumer confidence, Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge has an excellent assessment:

The only thing worse than the oil flowing out of the GoM gusher, is the BS now openly flowing out of the government propaganda machine, which has jumped the shark beyond all semblance of credibility. How consumer confidence in May was the highest in over two years, at 76, higher than April’s already ludicrous 73.6, and highest since January 2008, is not even worthy of commentary. It must have been the flash crash, the BP oilspill catastrophe, the market’s 10% drop and Europe’s bankruptcy that really pushed consumer confidence to that near record level…  Just who do these people call to “gauge” confidence anyway: just Barack Obama, the president, the POTUS, and the Teleprompter in Chief (not necessarily in that order)?

The consumer confidence survey is just that, a survey. These are not numbers based on any actual economic facts, but rather, a phone call asking consumers how confident they feel about a variety of things like their current employment situation and finances. As Zero Hedge pointed out, this begs the question: Who did they call? Because from where we’re standing, we are anything but confident.