Californians are so spooked about their economic futures that one measure of their collective financial outlook is down 23% since Donald Trump captured his second White House stint.

My trusty spreadsheet found a muddied monetary perspective in the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index for California, which is calculated from public polling. High anxiety is seen when measuring average results for the three months ending in October and the same period 12 months earlier, just before Trump won the presidential election.

The most striking change is the 23% slide in the “expectations” slice of the confidence index – basically, the Californian view of the financial future. That put this yardstick of economic hopes 16% below its average since 2007.

A glum outlook is the key reason the st

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