.bodytext {float: left; } .floatimg-left-hort { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right: 10px; width:300px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 10px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} Dear Mr. Berko:

Dear T.R.:

Oh ye of big suspicions and little faith …

But you’re right as a rainbow, and I’d wager my 1958 waterproof wind-up Timex that fewer than 0.05 percent of Americans have any idea of what and who The Conference Board is and what it does. So read on and become knowledgeable.

The New York-based Conference Board is headed by Douglas Conant, chief executive officer of Campbell Soup Co., and its directors include the CEOs of Merck, Unilever, Alcoa, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, State Farm, Credit Suisse, Aetna and other prominent captains of industry.

The Conference Board, best known for its Consumer Confidence Index, was established in 1916. It provides the world’s leading corporations and governments with pertinent and compelling data about the marketplace, conducts research, convenes conferences, makes forecasts, assesses trends, publishes this information and brings important world executives together to learn from one another. The Conference Board has offices in Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Switzerland, England, Turkey, India, Hong Kong, Ireland and a few countries that I may have missed.

It’s a nonprofit organization employing a substantial worldwide staff of researchers, statisticians, political experts, marketing experts, economists, psychologists, sociologists, human resources people and the like, to collate, interpret, publish and disseminate this data.

Its worldwide network of professionals is respected by businesses, governments and universities, and the quality as well as the relevance of its data is held in high esteem by most of the world’s leaders.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, The Conference Board tells us that its world-watched Consumer Confidence Index has plummeted to 85.2, the lowest reading since October 2005, when gas and oil prices soared after hurricanes flooded New Orleans and shut down 40 percent of our oil refineries. And it’s the consumers whose perception of their future well-being is measured who are responsible for 70 percent of this nation’s gross domestic product.

Certainly the consumer’s apprehension is being kindled by the subprime fiasco, high fuel prices, potentially higher winter heating bills, the collapse of home prices, volatility in the financial markets, rising health-care costs and concerns about the permanency of their jobs. So when The Conference Board speaks, those in the know listen. And when it’s said that consumer confidence is in trouble, you’d better believe it. I trust The Conference Board.

But I’m not as comfortable accepting Washington’s numbers, which are often skewed by political influence. Yes, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the Consumer Price Index recently rose by 2.5 percent, excluding fuel and food costs. This means that inflation so far this year is manageable and acceptable. This is a great number providing you don’t drive a car, heat your home or eat. But the government isn’t telling what else is excluded from its calculations, and for Floridians it doesn’t take into consideration huge increases in property taxes (threefold in many cases) and the increase in homeowners insurance premiums, which have more than tripled. Some university economists believe that the inflation rate for Floridians is 7.9 percent.

Meanwhile a researcher at the Conference Board with whom I’ve recently talked believes that the real CPI rise for the nation is 5.2 percent, not the 2.5 percent recently reported by the government. And that researcher also tells me that the job growth numbers, while accurate, are misleading.

The October number of 161,000 new jobs is correct, but 84 percent of those new jobs are low-paying, menial positions in which employees are making much less than they earned at their previous jobs. It would be nice if Washington would trust us with “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

Please address your financial questions to Malcolm Berko, P.O. Box 1416, Boca Raton, Fla. 33429 or e-mail him at malber@adelphia.net.© Copley News Service