Ellen Zentner

We started changing our altering our behavior on the types of vehicles we were buying.

You've seen all the reports of people now inquiring about EVs, for instance.

But it takes time to change those behaviors.

And so you have to suck it up and pay it at the pump until you can cut costs.

Well, I mean, this has been like how many years in a row we've been talking about this.

The low-income consumer has been in and out of recession.

The first recession they went to was when they worked through the excess savings that had been built up during COVID from the stimulus and just not being able to spend.

Yep.

so they've been in and out of recession.

Luckily, wage growth has, at least for a time, been outpacing inflation.

But the wealthy consumer, we don't need the wealthy consumer to just stop spending.

It's slowing spending.

And of course, if you've already met a lot of pent-up demand, you've been out there spending for years now with this amazing run-up in financial assets, you're sitting on a lot of equity in your home, but you're not seeing further gains

It can cause you to pull back on spending.

And that's all it all it takes.

So business investment had been very tech and infrastructure related, AI related last year.

The big optimism around this year has been with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act as we turn the corner into this year, there were nascent signs of business investment starting to broaden out because it's really hard to not want to take advantage of that.

We've done 100% bonus depreciation, sorry, 50% before.

We've not done 100%.

And it's on infrastructure as well.