Courtney Brown

I also am curious and surprised by the resiliency of the American consumer.

And this isn't the only year that we're having this conversation about consumer resiliency, right?

This has been the story of the U.S.

economy for a while now.

I think what makes it the most shocking is some of the factors that you mentioned that are new to the economy this year.

Tariffs, for instance.

We've seen the consumer continue to spend

despite some tariff-related price increases.

And I think the big question for my reporting in 2026 is how much longer can this continue, especially as the labor market starts to look a little bit more rocky?

Will consumers keep spending or will they start to be more cautious?

That's a massive question for the economy going into next year.

Right, right.

My motto, at least in my head lately, has been everything is K-shaped.

There is a real big divide in all of the big aspects of society right now where it's starting to become more apparent.

Even in the stock market, you can see the divide between businesses that have an AI theme.

Those are doing really well versus those that may not have such a big role in the AI boom.

you're starting to see kind of a K-shape develop there as well.

But I really wonder, again, going back to this question about the consumer, I wonder how much the higher end consumer can continue to carry consumer spending the way that we've seen.

Just based on corporate anecdotes, we know that lower income consumers are starting to pull back, shift their spending, as Rachel was kind of alluding to.

And high income consumers just keep chugging along powered by stock market returns or what have you.