Did We All Suddenly Lose Our Consumer Mojo Last Month?

(MoneyWatch)  After rising for more than a year, U.S. consumers' confidence unexpectedly turned lower in September, according to a Reuters/University of Michigan report released today. The question is: Why did we suddenly lose our mojo?

Just as countless factors affect stock-market moves vs. the singular causes the financial media often cite - i.e. a tech giant's earnings surprise - many factors influence consumers' sense of well-being. For that reason, it was convenient more than accurate for the report to blame our confidence swoon on worries about the "dismal" state of our personal finances.

No one wakes up and says to themselves: "Gee, I'm suddenly gripped with panic about the state of my financial affairs!" Such anxiety is triggered by one or more specific developments at one's micro-economic level - the unexpected $1,500 car repair, receipt of a property tax bill on a house worth less than you owe, the need to hire a math tutor for your child and realizing the $30 a week cost will squeeze your budget.

At the same time, macroeconomic forces also affect our mood. These may have played into our becoming dispirited in the past month:

• The health-care reform morass: Progress stalled last month on the most difficult and needed legislative package Washington has attempted to fashion in years, raising concern we may get token reform on something that affects our finances individually and collectively .
• The rising jobless rate: U.S. unemployment creeped closer to the double-digit percentage level last month, making many of us that much more uneasy about our own job security.
• The stalled stock-market run-up: After rising steadily from its March 9 low of 6,547, the Dow Jones Industrial Average spent all of September bounding around between 9,280 and 9,829, essentially ending its six-month rally.
• The Impact of Economizing: Americans have sharply boosted their savings rate, which for all its benefits, comes at the sobering cost of curtailing discretionary spending on the type of frivolous and non-essential purchases that provide temporary endorphin boosts.

U.S. consumers have good reason to feel a little less ebullient about the state of economic affairs. So now it's just a question of what October brings.