Today, a disappointing US Federal Commerce Department report showed that retail sales there fell in June. The decreased in purchases was a more-than-projected 0.5% – less than the 1.1% fall in May, but enough to deepen gloom in every home and office.

In this context, two response are interesting.

First, Washington’s major business groups were to meet with the President at the White House today. They told the media in advance that a ‘united front’ would be presented on economic policy, and called on the Obama administration to cut taxes and curb its regulatory agenda.

Second, four out of five Americans who took part in newly-released Bloomberg research said they have little or no confidence in the financial regulatory measure passed by the Democrats and chapioned by President Obama. Most believe the Act will not prevent or even significantly soften a future crisis. More than three-quarters say they don’t have much or any confidence the proposal will make their savings and financial assets more secure.

Obama had praised the Wall St overhaul as the most comprehensive reform of Wall Street since the Depression, telling White House reporters yesterday that the measure “will prevent a financial crisis like this from happening again, by protecting consumers against the unfair practices of credit card companies and mortgage lenders.”

But the consumer reaction was what polite Americans call BS, and this site tends to call ‘bollocks’.

Scepticism about the financial legislation cuts across Party lines, adding fuel to the Slog hypothesis that politics from here on is more likely to be about Big v Small than Left v Right.

The Bloomberg study also had a qualitative dimension, in which respondents’ telling views were recorded.

“What happened was a farce,” says Victor Bruno, a 58- year-old surgeon in Westfield, New Jersey. “These guys were just gambling with our money. Something needs to be done.”

“Banks and the government are making out, not the ordinary person,” said Lenore Critzer, a 70-year-old retiree from Nelson, Ohio. “We’re going to have another crisis and worse.”

I’m bound to say, I tend to agree with Lenore. But the ramifications for Obama are obvious: as The Slog predicted some time ago, he may well be heading for a One-Term Pesidency.