U.S. consumer sentiment plunged to a decade low in November, according to a University of Michigan survey, which blamed inflation and a growing sense among Americans that no effective policies have been put in place to rein in surging prices. The university’s most recent consumer sentiment index fell to a reading of 67.4 in November, down around four percentage points from October’s reading of 71.7 percent and a 10-year low. “The decline was due to a combination of rapidly escalating inflation combined with the absence of federal policies that would effectively redress the inflationary damage to household budgets,” Richard Curtin, the survey director, said in a statement. Curtin said one in four people responding to the survey “cited inflationary erosions of their living standards” while respondents universally “expressed less optimism in the November 2021 survey than any other time in the past decade about prospects for their own finances as well as …